Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698929887604.pdf (Sierra Leone)
OAU DRIVE, TOWER HILL, FREETOWN P A R L I A M E N T A R Y D E B A T E S ____ [HANSARD] ______________ OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT SECOND SESSION - THIRD MEETING TUESDAY, 19TH NOVEMBER, 2019 SESSION – 2019/2020 OAU DRIVE, TOWER HILL, FREETOWN P A R L I A M E N T A R Y D E B A T E S ____ [HANSARD] ______________ OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT VOLUME: II NUMBER: 24 Second Meeting of the Second Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone.
Proceedings of the Sitting of the House Held onTuesday, 19th November, 2019.

2 CONTENTS I. PRAYERS II.

RECORD OF VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY SITTING HELD ON TUESDAY 14TH NOVEMBERM, 2019 III.

MOTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE PROPOSER: HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS SECONDER: HON.


BASHIRU SILIKIE BE IT RESOLVES: THAT THE EIGHTH REPORT OF THE SECOND SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE BE ADOPTED BY THE HOUSE AND THAT THE RECOMMENDATIONS CONTAINED THEREIN BE APPROVED.

IV.
IV.

BILL [i] THE CHAIRMAN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON THE BILL ENTITLED “THE ELECTRONIC TRANSACTION ACT, 2018” [ii] THE ELECTRONIC TRANSACTION ACT 2018 COMMITTEE STAGE AND THIRD READING THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS [V].

PRIVATE MEMBER’S MOTION PROPOSER: HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE SECONDER: HON.


ABDUL KARIM KAMARA BE IT RESOLVED THAT: 3 IN THE INTEREST OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY AND ADDRESSING THE HAZARDS AND DEGRADATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL, ROAD SAFETY AND PRESERVATION AND THE REDUCTION IN HIGH COST OF ROADS MAINTENANCE THAT [i].
ALL LARGE SCALE INDUSTRIES, MINING COMPANIES WITH ACCESS TO SEA PORTS, RIVER EXPORT, IMPORT TERMINALS, JETTIES THROUGH WITH THE AFORESAID COMPANIES OUT EXPORTS OF THE COMMODITIES, MINERALS THAT THEY MINE, PRODUCE OR CARRY OUT IMPORTS OF MACHINERY, SPARE PARTS OR ANY OTHER IMPORT MUST IMPORT DELIVER A MINIMUM OF 60% OF THEIR MONTHLY FUEL CONSUMPTION BY SEA, RIVER VIA THE AFORESAID SEA PORTS, RIVER EXPORT, IMPORT TERMINALS, JETTIES.

[ii].
[ii].

ONLY SEA TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES WHO HAVE HAD EXPERIENCE SUPPLYING PETROLEUM PRODUCTS VIA SEA, RIVER INTO SEA PORTS, RIVER EXPORT, IMPORT TERMINALS, JETTIES IN SIERRA LEONE IN THE LAST FIVE [5] YEARS SHALL OPERATE OR CARRY OUT THIS SERVICE IN SIERRA LEONE.
4 THE CHAMBER OF PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SIERRA LEONE Official Hansard Report of the Proceedings of the House _____________________________________________________________ SECOND SESSION – THIRD MEETING OF THE FIFTH PARLIAMENT OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC _____________________________ Tuesday, 19th November, 2019.

I. PRAYERS [The Table Clerk, Mrs Bintu Weston, Read the Prayers] [The House met at 10:10a.m.

in Parliament Building, Tower Hill, Freetown] [The Speaker, Hon.
Dr Chernor Abass Bundu in the Chair] The House was called to Order 5 Suspension of S. O.

5[2] II CORRECTION OF VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY SITTING HELD ON THURSDAY 14TH NOVEMBER, 2019.

THE SPEAKER: Before we take the Records of Vote and Proceedings, do you have any amendments to make?

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Yes Mr Speaker.


Mr Speaker, I want to crave the indulgence of the House to amend the Order Paper so that item number 3 become item number 5 and 5[i, ii and iii] remain the same because the Report of the Appointments Committee is not ready at the moment due to some technical issues, but I can assure the House that after lunch the Report will be ready.

Mr Speaker, I therefore move that we amend the Order Paper.

HON.
HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Speaker, I will not object to what my colleague on the other side of the aisle have just said, but time and again, you have made it very clear in this Well that lateness to produce such document is becoming a perennial problem and we have almost tried to get over that, but it is still recurring.

I hope that this will be the very last time that Order Papers would be coming late to us.

Whatever mistakes that might have been made we expect that they must be corrected before we sit.
Like I said earlier, I am not objecting to what my colleague is saying, but let us all try to do more robust job in that area.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you Mr Acting Leader of the Opposition.

To the best of my recollection what has become perennial is the attendance of Members of Parliament, not the production of Reports.

Let us pay attention to first things first.

Look at the numbers of empty sits to my left.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, not just to the left, but also to your right.
THE SPEAKER: There are fewer empty sits to my right.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: No sir [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: I have eyes to see.

6 HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, it is still not acceptable and we are here as one Parliament.

If Parliament cannot start at 10:00a.m as a result of lateness of Members of Parliament, it is lateness of Members of Parliament, whether left or right.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma, you have been helping me quite a bit.
Are you retracting from that position now?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, I am with you 100% that lateness of Members of Parliament is unacceptable.

THE SPEAKER: And it is being perennial.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: And it is being perennial.

THE SPEAKER: And more so to me left.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: No, that is not true.

Mr Speaker if you say so, that will be killing the entire spirit.

You cannot start now because Members of Sierra Leone Parliament cannot form quorum.

THE SPEAKER: I take note.


HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: It does not matter whether it is left or right, we cannot start.

THE SPEAKER: We shall proceed.

Who is the Acting Leader, where is he?

HON.

ALUSINE KANNEH: Mr Speaker, THE SPEAKER: You have something new to say?

HON.

ALUSINE KANNEH: Yes, concerning Members of Parliament that are not present today.

I was informed that some Members of Parliament on our side went on Oversight with the Committee on Basic Education.

HON.
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, every Committee has political party representation everywhere.

The Education Committee is not just made up of Sierra Leone People’s Party [SLPP] Members of Parliament.

It is made up of every Member of Parliament.

7 THE SPEAKER: Okay, you have made your point.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: That is not enough.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Deputy Whip, the point that you have made is very weak because every Select Committee has membership right across the aisle.
So please take your sits.

Honourable Acting Leader of Government Business, can I hear your Motion again please.

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I move that item number 3 become item number 5.

I agree with what my colleague on the other side of the aisle said and I will promise the House that those mistakes will not occur again.

That is my motion Mr Speaker.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: On that note Mr Speaker, I second the Motion.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you.

That is the spirit.


[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [Motion to amend the Order Paper has been carried] HON.

SORIEBA TURAY: Mr Speaker, your son ‘Tamemkor’ is back.

Thank you very much [Laughter].

THE SPEAKER: Tamemkor, welcome again.

HON.

SORIEBA TURAY: Thank you very much Sir.

THE SPEAKER: I am not going to ask you where you have been, but since you have reported your presence we acknowledge it.
COMMUNICATION FROM THE CHAIR II CORRECTION OF VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY SITTING HELD ON THURSDAY 14TH NOVEMBER, 2019.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Members, we go through the Record of Votes and Proceedings for Parliamentary sitting held on Thursday 14th November 2019.

As usual 8 we shall skip Pages 1 through to 4 and start from page 5.

Any comments or amendments?

Page 6?

HON.

EMELIA L. TONGI: Mr Speaker, my name is wrongly spelt and I want the Clerks to take note of that.
THE SPEAKER: Where does your name appear?

HON.

EMELIA L. TONGI: Page 4 Sir.

THE SPEAKER: We have skip Pages 1 through to 4 Madam.

HON.

EMELIA L. TONGI: It is for your knowledge Sir.

THE SPEAKER: The Clerks will take note.

Page 5?

Page 6?

Any comments or amendments?

Page 7?

Page 8?

HON.

ALLIEU I. KAMARA: Mr Speaker Sir, THE SPEAKER: Page 8?

HON.

ALLIEU I. KAMARA: Page 8 Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Yes.

HON.

ALLIEU I. KAMARA: My name is wrongly spelt Sir.

They have omitted the ‘u’.


I am not Alie Ibrahim Kamara, I am Allieu Ibrahim Kamara.

THE SPEAKER: The Clerks will take not.

HON.

ALLIEU I. KAMARA: Thank you Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Any other corrections or comments or amendments?

We move on then to Page 9.

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, Page 9 item 4, line 2, it supposed to be Hastings Wharf and not Hastings village.

THE SPEAKER: I cannot see the speaker, where is he?

HON.

REV.
HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Yes, Mr Speaker, with regards the issue of land repossession.

9 THE SPEAKER: The lighting over there is very poor.

Are you making a correction?

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Yes Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: What page?

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Page 9, paragraph 4.

THE SPEAKER: Yes.

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: It is Hastings Wharf and not Hastings village.

THE SPEAKER: Very well.

Thank you.

Any other?

Page 10?

HON.


HINDOLO M. GEVAO: ‘Mr Speaker asked the Honourable Members to refer the matter to the Committee of Information and Internal Affairs.

He also added that he would try by all means to ensure that Parliament had, h-a-d’ THE SPEAKER: What paragraph are you reading from?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Paragraph 7; response from Mr Speaker.
The penultimate sentence thereto, ‘…he also added that he would try by all means to ensure that Parliament had its own cameras.’ The word ‘had’ I think is misplaced Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: You may take your sit, perfectly correct in English.

Page 11?

Can someone please move for the adoption of the Record of Votes and Proceedings for the parliamentary sitting held on Thursday 14th November, 2019?

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I so move.

THE SPEAKER: Any Seconder?

HON.


MOSES B. JORKIE: I so second Mr Speaker.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [Record of Votes and Proceedings for the parliamentary sitting held on Thursday 14th November has been adopted as amended] 10 HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to make an amendment to the Order Paper under Private Members Motion [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Where were you when that was being done?

HON.
HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE: Sorry Mr Speaker, I was waiting for the seconder, but he called me that he is on oversight.

We want to have a new seconder.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to move that the Order Paper be amended to read; seconder of the Motion to be Honourable Lahai Marah.

THE SPEAKER: Knowing the Honourable Member as we all do, I hear no objection.

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: Mr Speaker, I so second that Motion [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: Very well.


Honourable Members, before we move on to the next item on the Order Paper, a number of Honourable Members raised issues under S.O 23 at the last sitting and I very well recall that a number of them were asked to pursue certain investigations and to report back to this House.

Are they in a position to do so now or you want to wait until we come to S.O 23 again?

Yes Honourable Maada Afiju Kanja.

HON.


HAFIJU M. KANJA: Mr Speaker, Committee on Defence was asked to investigate complaints that were reported to this Well under S.O 23 from different complainants and you asked us to do it jointly with the Lands Committee.

On Friday, we were supposed to meet here by 11:00a.m and the Chairman of Lands Committee told us that he has already invited the Deputy Lands Minister.
Defence Committee were here till 11:00a.m and the Lands Minister came, but he and the Lands Chairman disappeared and we did not meet at all.

THE SPEAKER: I will not of course pay heed to the imputation contained in that statement, but I do take note of the fact that you are saying that the Chairman concerned disappeared.

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Not correct Sir.

Can I respond Sir?

THE SPEAKER: By all means.

11 HON.


QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Unfortunately on the said day I was out of Parliament, but before then, I had already summoned the Minister and his entire team for a meeting which was not related to S.O 23 on that day.
On Friday, the Minister and his entire team came, we had the meeting concerning the complaints about the Ministry and the Minister and one of the resolutions that came up with from that meeting was that the Minister should come to the Well of Parliament to answer the so many questions, aspirations and concerns against the Ministry and himself.
After the meeting, I went to Mr Speaker’s office to give him an update about the meeting and that the Minister would be summoned with his approval, but in response, Mr Speaker told us that he want to see the Report because the content of the Report will give the go ahead for him to come to the Well of Parliament.
But that was a meeting planned well ahead of the S.O 23 on that day and unfortunately I was not in the Well [Undertone] yes, listen, that was an independent meeting planned and even after that I was called by my Clerk to inform me about the resolution taken on that day and I instructed the Clerk to meet with the other Clerks of the various Committees so that they can write a uniform letter inviting all the different stakeholders about the meeting.

So, that was the case and I reported to Mr Speaker.
THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member.

You may take your seat.

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, may I be heard Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Who is that?

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Right at the back here Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: I do not know whether anything can be done about this, but the lighting system at the back of the Well looks weak.

Anyway, you may be heard, go ahead.

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


Mr Speaker, considering the amount of seriousness you gave to this particular issue.

The Chairman of the Committee on Lands on Friday informed me that the Minister will be coming.

THE SPEAKER: He informed you in what capacity?

12 HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: He informed me based on the fact that I raised the issue in Hastings Wharf on S.O 23.

THE SPEAKER: Okay.

HON.

REV.


HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, you gave an instruction that the Committee on Lands and the Committee on Defence should meet.

Mr Speaker, on that day I met with the Chairman and he told myself and the Honourable who is the Youth Leader; he informed us that we should be dormant and he does not want us to be part of that meeting [Interruption].

HON.
HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Speaker, I do not know who the Honourable is talking about, is it Honourable Hafiju Maada Kanja or Mr Youth Leader?

Can you please clarify that because we do not have Youth Leader in Parliament, it is for the records Mr Speaker.

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, for the records, it is Honourable Hafiju Maada Kanja.

Mr Speaker, the Chairman told us that we have to be dormant and we should not be part of that meeting [Undertone] he said that to me in person.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members.

THE SPEAKER: Order!

HON.

REV.

HORACE E. VINCENT: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, whilst we were here on that particular day, military officers were still at Hastings Wharf destroying the houses of people and harassing my people in my Constituency.

Even yesterday Mr Speaker, four houses were broken down at Rokel by military officers supervised by a land officer.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to urge this House that serious measures be taken because people are suffering in the hands of these land officers and military officers.

Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

HON.

QUITIN SALIA-KONNEH: Mr Speaker, let me make some clarifications.

THE SPEAKER: Hold on.

Mr Chairman, take your seat.

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Mr Speaker, 13 THE SPEAKER: On this same issue?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Yes Mr Speaker.


If I remember very well on that day I was the second speaker that towed the line of my colleague concerning this land issue at Hastings.

It is very serious and the meeting that was called by our Chairman of Lands, it was not communicated adequately.

It was a surprise to me as the Deputy Chairman II to go to the Speaker’s Conference Hall to meet them already in the meeting.
However, I believe the Chairman in his own wisdom thought that the best way to handle this issue was to lure the Minister to come and face the Well so that we will then bring up these concerns, but he did not know the fact that you had given an instruction that this issue is an issue of urgent importance and that he must treat it and bring a Report to this Well.

He did not know about that but when we were there, it was a one sided meeting.
The Minister was very adamant in his presentation, he made it clear to us that he is not going to let go of those military personnel that are with him and he is continuing with his actions until the President thinks otherwise.

But of course, the meeting was not open up for some of us to make contributions, but since it was a separate meeting other than the one you ordered us to hold as a Committee that is why some of us held our peace until the end of the meeting.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, this issue of the Lands Ministry is very serious.

It is high time we take stringent measures as to how we safeguard our constituents.

We are not against the reclamation of state lands, but when you reclaim lands, you do not allocate them immediately, there must be procedures, but immediately they reclaim the lands, they give to another person at the same point.

Our people voted us to come here and represent them and whatever concerns them should concern us.
This is a burning issue Mr Speaker and I want this House to take it very seriously so that we can lay this issue to rest.

Thank you.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member.

I know the land issue is a very burning issue.

I think we had all agreed on that and I am very happy to observe that you held your peace on that occasion and I will advise that you continue to hold your peace.

Now let me make my position clear on this issue.


I have received no 14 representation that convinces me that I should depart from the position I expressed during the last meeting [Applause].

The two Committees should continue to meet and the two Chairmen concerned should ensure that a joint meeting takes place to consider this matter.

We have not yet reached the point of inviting the Minister to the Well of the House.

I do not think that would be right, not at this point.
I will give the opportunity to the two Committees to have their joint meeting, invite the Minister to their joint meeting and put to the Minister the concerns that have reached this House from the general public and I do hope a written report would be prepared for Parliament and based on that written report we shall decide what to do next.

HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: Mr Speaker Sir, HON.

QUITIN SALIA-KONNEH: Mr Speaker, THE SPEAKER: The Chairman is the last person I will allow to reply.

HON.
HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: So let me come in before the chairman Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Yes Honourable Abdul Kargbo.

HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: Mr Speaker, I have never doubted your resolve.

I could remember there was a point in time when you had to attend the Sport Committee meeting because you needed to put the situation under control.
By every indication it has been clearly expressed here that Members in the Committee are incommunicado with the Chairman because it is also a surprise to me, I am a Member of that Committee.

The Minister was surreptitiously invited here without the knowledge of the entire Committee Members and I want you, Mr Speaker to come in because this issue is very much important.
We have had more than three Members of Parliament who have similarly expressed their dissatisfaction on the manner in which the Chairman and the Minister are comporting themselves.

So I want to suggest that you preside over that Joint Committee so that we would have a final solution or else we are going to have too many problems Sir [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: Yes Mr Chairman, you may now speaker.

15 HON.

QUITIN SALIA-KONNEH: Thank you Mr Speaker and I am the very last speaker on this matter.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to allay the fears of Honourable Members.

As I rightly said earlier on, I was not in the Chamber the day that statement was made and I was not informed.

That was a meeting called prior to the day of that resolution and that meeting was called primarily to inform the Minister that there are thousands or hundreds of complaints against the Ministry.
I said in that meeting that we are to summon the Minister in the House because we may not have time to go into each and every complaint tabled in front of me.

We have series of complaints from different groups, different individuals, different Honourable Members, etc.
Having a joint meeting will be the first condition, but I believe that would not be sufficient to actually allay the fears of Honourable Members in this House and that was why in the meeting we summarise the whole issue by giving him the opportunity to come and stand in front of Honourable Members so that every Honourable Member will have the opportunity to ask questions for clarifications, etcetera so that we avoid series of back and forth meetings.
THE SPEAKER: Honourable Member, when we reach that stage that would be done amongst other things, but we have not yet reached that stage.

We are still at the point of the two Committees meeting together and inviting the Minister concern to answer to the questions that you all have.

HON.

QUITIN SALIA-KONNEH: Noted sir.

THE SPEAKER: And a report should be prepared for Parliament based on that report we shall decide what to do next.

HON QUITIN SALIA-KONNEH: Noted Mr Speaker.


THE SPEAKER: So this time, I will direct that you as the Chairperson of the Lands Committee and Honourable Hafiju Maada Kanja as the Chairperson of the Defence Committee should meet before the end of this week.
Select a date for the joint meeting to take place before the end of this week to which the Honourable Minister should be invited and by next week a report should emanate from that Joint Committee meeting 16 [Undertone] Sergeant-at-Arms, I think it is time you go up there.

Okay, so we bring that issue to a closure for now.

Yes.

HON.
Yes.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I stand here this morning to read the Report on behalf of the Committee on Technical and Higher Education based on concerns raised by my colleagues Honourable Members and I therefore ask your permission to allow me to read [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: No!

You do not have my permission.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Okay.

We held a meeting yesterday accordingly [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Hold on.


When your Report is ready, your Report should be Table before the House.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Okay.

On that note, I withdraw this and I will lay the Report accordingly in the next sitting.

Thank you Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Have you completed your work?

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Partially, yes.

THE SPEAKER: Partially?

HON.


ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: We still have another team, particularly the Finance team to respond to the concerns raised by the universities as the reason for the escalating fees [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: So your work is continuing?

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Yes sir.

THE SPEAKER: Well you have not completed, so there is no Report for you to present.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: It is because you requested a respond today.

I am doing that because I want to be compliant [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: So you are making an interim oral report.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Yes sir.

I do not mind [Interruption].

17 THE SPEAKER: So tell the House that your work continues.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Colleague Honourable Members, my assignment continues, but in the meantime I want to present to you verbally our findings as of yesterday [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: No.

HON.

HASSAN A. SASAY: Mr Speaker, THE SPEAKER: Let the work of your Committee continue.
This is just an interim Report, indeed you are right to say we expected some kind of Report to emanate from that Committee which you have just given, but since you have yet to meet with certain important persons of interest to that Committee, we will take it that this is just an interim one.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: It is.

On that note, I want to give the summary.

I am pleased to inform you that the universities have agreed to reduce their [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: Do not pre-empt the collective Report.

HON.

HASSAN A. SASAY: Mr Speaker, HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: I am not reading.

THE SPEAKER: No you are not reading, but you are about to narrate to the House your conclusions, the outcome of your deliberations.

Do not do that yet.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: I will hold my peace and then advice that [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Hold your peace and then continue with your work.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Noted Sir.

HON.


HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Speaker, the Honourable Member ought to understand that that item is not even on the Order Paper.

So there is no reason discussing it now.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: It is under S.O 23.

18 THE SPEAKER: No, it may not be on the Order Paper, you are right in your observation, but it is in the Votes and Proceedings that we have just approved.

HON.

ALIMAMY O. KAMARA: Additionally Mr Speaker, I remember you clearly stated yesterday [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: Yes, let us not be laboured the point please.

Any other point?

Fine, thank you.

We proceed.

Item 3, the Chairman of the Legislative Committee, are you ready?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Yes Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Is the Minister here?

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Speaker, I think I saw the Deputy Minister.

III.

BILL: COMMITTEE STAGE The Chairman of the Legislative Committee-Report of the Legislative Committee on the Bill entitled; Electronic Transaction Act, 2019.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Chairman, colleagues Members of Parliament, please allow me to draw the attention of this House to a little amendment due to typographical error.

Please substitute the word National Commissions for Social Action on Page 1, the second sentence with Committee on Information, same on Page 2, Committee of Information on the first sentence.
Mr Chairman, this is the Third Joint Committee Report of the Legislative and Committee on Information and Communication, Second Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone on the Bill entitled Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 presented to Parliament on Thursday 19th November, 2019.

1.
Introduction Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I rise to present the Joints Report of the Legislative Committee and the Committee on Information, Second Section of the Fifth Parliament 19 of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone on the Bill entitled the Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 being an Act to provide for the formal recognition of the legal effect of electronic transaction including electronic signatures to provide for the admissibility of electronic messages in evidence, to provide for the validity or enforceability of contract executed in electronic form and to provide for other related matters.
Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, the Bill haven gone through the Second Reading was committed to the Legislative Committee for scrutiny pursuant to Standing Order 51[1] to be supported by the Committee on Information and Communication.

Subsequently, the Committees met on Friday the 15th November, 2019 in Speaker’s Conference Room, Parliament Building, Tower Hill with the following objectives: i.

To scrutinise the detail provisions of the Legislative proposals after the Second Reading in the House; and ii.
To ascertain the constitutional and legal implications contain therein and to report to Parliament in accordance with the provisions of the Standing Orders of this Honourable House.

Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, in attendance where the Permanent Secretary, Minister of Information and Communication, and officials of his Ministry, and also officers from National Telecommunications Commission [NATCOM] who made meaningful contribution.

2.
2.

Recommendation[s] Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, the Legislative Committee and Committee on Information haven scrutinised the Bill line by line and clause by clause recommended the following amendment to the House for approval.

[i] Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, the Committee agreed that anywhere the year 2018 appears in the Bill, it should be amendment to read 2019.
[ii] Part Two Plenary; that from the definition of the words ‘advance electronic signature’ to the definition of the words ‘electronic message’ be approve; 20 [iii] That a definition of the words ‘irresponsible officer’ be provided for to mean ‘a responsible officer, means a person authorized to issue digital certificate;’ [iv] The definition of the word ‘goods’ be amended by deleting the word ‘or’ on the first line and replacing it with the word ‘of.’ That from the definition of the word ‘information’ to the definition of the word ‘person’ be approved.
From the definition of the words ‘personal information’ paragraph G be deleted, that from the definition of the words ‘qualified digital certificate’ to Clause 2 ‘application’ be approved; [v] Legal Effect of Electronic Information and Electronic Transaction.

[i] That from Clauses 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 be approved.

[ii] That Clause 8 be approve.

[vi] Part Three; Validity of electronic transaction.

[i] That Clauses 9, 10 and 11 be approve.


[ii] Clause 12 Sub-Clause 3 be amended by deleting the words ‘does not’ and the word ‘they’ on the first line.

Consumer Protection, [i] Clause 13 and 14 be approve.

[ii] Clause 15.

Mr Chairman, Honourable Members Clause 15 Sub-Clause 1 and 2 deals with applicable law.
The Clause state as follows: [i] ‘The activities within the scope of the Act should be subject to the law of the country on whose territory the person carrying out the activities is established.’ [ii] Without prejudice to the freedom of the parties in choosing the laws that applied to the transaction where the parties fail to choose the law to be applied shall be the law of the current resident of the consumer.
Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, the Committee agreed that this be debated in the Plenary for more input, that Clause 17 Sub-Clause 3 be amended by deleting the words 21 ‘fourteen days’ and replacing it with ‘twenty one days.’ That Clause 18 Sub-Clause 3 be deleted.

Clause 19 Sub-Clause 2 be amended by deleting the words ‘without unjustified delay’ and replacing it with ‘seven days of date of order.’ That Clause 20 and 21 be approved.
Liability of Service Providers; that Clause 22 be deleted, Clause 23 and 24 be approved, that Clause 25 Sub-Clause 1 be deleted.

Miscellaneous Provision; that Clause 26 be approved.

Conclusion Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, the Legislative Committee and the Committee on Information haven scrutinised the Bill entitled Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 recommends these proposals to the House for approval.
The Report reflect the consensus of Honourable Members of the Committee, I therefore move that the House pass the Bill entitled the Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 through Committee Stage, Third Reading and into law.

Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, if you may allow me to dilate a little bit on the issue that we will ask the House to debate on.
Mr Chairman, if you look at the provision, Sub-Clause 1 is saying the activities within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the law of the country on whose territory the person carrying out the activities is established.
We ask the Permanent Secretary and the expert that came from the Ministry of Information for their view they were saying if it is a company and that company is based in America and the transaction happens to occur between a Sierra Leonean and that company in America, the person can only sue that person or company in America, and we on that Committee did not agree with that quite because this is an international based Bill, if it becomes Act it is going to be an Act that will be dealing with transaction between individuals from different countries and when you come to [two]2 Mr Chairman, it says without prejudice to the freedom of the parties in choosing the laws that applied to their transaction where the parties failed to choose, the law to be applied shall be the law of the current resident of the consumer.
We found this to be in conflict with [i] because if you are saying it is only the law applicable in the country where the service provider reside, it means you are depriving the other person of choosing and you are coming again and telling the person where choice fails, 22 so we are saying that we should refer this to the Plenary to be debated and see if we can come to a consensus.

I thank you Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: I thank the Chairman of the Legislative Committee for his Report.
We shall now go through the Bill in Committee Stage in accordance with the S.Os and we shall incorporate the recommendations contained in the Report of the Legislative Committee, and you will be free to debate by either accepting or rejecting the recommendations as contained in the Report of the Legislative Committee as we proceed along the various parts of the Bill.

[Parts 1, 2 and 3 Clauses 1 to 12 stand part of the Bill] THE CHAIRMAN: Let us start with the title first please.

HON.
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: We did say during the Committee meeting that the very title of the Bill, the date be amended to 2019 although it is not captured in the Report.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are quite right.

That is why I was referring that we go first to the title.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes Sir and all subsequent reference should be deemed to be 2019 because there are so many references to 2018.
THE CHAIRMAN: Actually, when you look at the Legislative Committee Report; both the opening part of it and the concluding part, what I see is the danger of cut and paste.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Chairman, you are correct.

I just drew the attention of the Clerk that we have to be meticulous before we come to the Well when he brought it to me that there was a mistake [Undertone] can you hear me out?
Yesterday I went through it and it was Committee on Information, he will bear me witness and I am sure there would have been some corrections to be done, but Mr Chairman, he is human, and he works assiduously to ensure that this Bill is ready on the date given to 23 the Committee, we must commend him for that, it is a human error and let us accept it as it is.

I apologise on his behalf Mr Chairman.

HON.


ABDUL KARGBO: Mr Chairman, I am of the opinion that no Committee Clerk will bring any Committee Report to this gathering without the signature of the Chairperson of that Committee instead of castigating the Clerk, I was going to suggest that Honourable Hindolo Moiwo Gevao and the Clerks take collectives responsibility on this error.

HON.

HINDOLO GEVAO: Honourable Abdul Kargbo, you are perfectly right.
I was a gentleman before becoming a Member of Parliament; I take full responsibly for the typographical errors on the Report.

Thank you [Applause].

HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: Thank you sir.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Chairman, I quite appreciates what my colleagues on the other side have been saying, but Mr Chairman, from your observation, it is beyond a typographical error.
You are telling us about the cut and paste syndrome and from the mistakes we saw here and my colleague was saying he read through the Report, he apologise but what I am saying is that the mistakes in the Report are not just typographical, there is much more to it than the typographical error, so I think something must be done about it.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Chairman, my colleague is saying it is not just typographical error, as a Member of Parliament when you assert you prove.
I have said what is there is typographical and if you go to say it is not typographical error, point it out [Undertone] I am a Member of Parliament, I have apologised, I am on national television, and Mr Chairman, I have said the Clerks have to work endlessly to ensure that this Report come to Parliament.
Sometime we are giving only eight hours or ten hours to make sure that Reports are ready and when these Reports come and there are errors and somebody is human enough to say I am sorry people must be ready to accept it, some of them will not be available to do the jobs we do [Applause].
24 THE CHAIRMAN: I think the points made on both sides are well noted, but let me say this; the primary function that we have as a Parliament is to make laws for the State of Sierra Leone, and when errors become rather common place almost routine, you begin to ask yourself whether those who have been charged with certain responsibilities give those tasks undivided attention, that goes for our Clerks as well as for the Chairmen, maybe we should apply ourselves a little bit more.
We are making laws for the country and that requires the extra ordinary effort on the part of each and every one of us to give our undivided attention to that task.

Let us hope this is the last time we will be seeing cut and paste appearing in our documents.

Having said that we shall proceed.

Yes I accept that 2018 should be deleted from the title and everywhere else that it appears [Undertone] we are not considering the Report, we are considering the Bill.

Mr Clerk, did you?
Mr Clerk, did you?

[Parts 1, 2 and 3 Clauses 1 to 12 stand part of the Bill] THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION THE CHAIRMAN: Madam Minister, MADAM MAMADI GOBEH-KAMARA [Deputy Minister of Information and Communication]: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that parts 1, 2 and 3 Clauses 1 to 12 stand part of the Bill.
[Question Proposed] THE CHAIRMAN: What we shall now do is to go through the various parts and Pages and as we go through each Page we will try to incorporate what is being recommended to us by the Legislative Committee, I hope that is understood?

I think we have dealt with Page 1.

Page 2?

Chairman of the Legislative Committee, I will give you the Floor to be bringing us up to date as we go through the Bill Page by Page.

Is there anything that you are recommending on Page 2?

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO GEVAO: Mr Chairman, Pages 1 and 2 are the interpretation section of the Act and under part 1 the plenary, if you look at Page 1 it says [Interruption].

25 THE CHAIRMAN: No, on Page 1.

Do you have any recommendation to make?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: No Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 2?

Any recommendation?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: No Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 3?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: None on Page 3 Sir.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, may I observe?


THE CHAIRMAN: By all means.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Thank you Sir.

I think at this stage, we need not put the Chairman under duress or [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: No, he is not under duress by anyone.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: It is not a one man show.

At this stage he is being guided by the Report which is now being reported to the Plenary for collective inputs on the process guided by the Chairman.

So it is not a one man show.


THE CHAIRMAN: I agree entirely, but he is leading it.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Of course he is guiding it.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

HON.

DANIEL KOROMA: But the question is for all of us if there is any problem on Page 2 or Page 3.

THE CHAIRMAN: You suggested that the word responsible officer be redefined.

I am looking for it, but I cannot find it.

Page what?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Mr Chairman it was not stated [Interruption].
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you guiding me or that question was meant for the Leader?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Yes Mr Chairman, it was not stated.

26 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: It was not stated; it was vague, it was just stated in the statement and we picked it up that responsible officer or person could be anybody, so it was at that point that we defined responsible officer.

THE CHAIRMAN: Honourable Members, my attention has just been drawn to Page 3.
If you look at Page 3 under the definition of digital certificate it is defined there to mean a record issued for the purpose of supporting an electronic signature that; then go down to paragraph D, that is signed by a responsible officer.

The Committee is now presenting to the House that, that terminology responsible officer is vague and it needs to be more clearly defined and in the Report, a responsible officer is define to mean a person authorised to issue digital certificate.
So in fact, what you are going to have is the definition of responsible officer under the definition Clause.

I hope everybody is with me?

Good.

So we shall pick it up again when we come to R. Page 4?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Page 4, the third paragraph.

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: The definition of goods include ‘all kinds of’ and not ‘all kinds or.’ THE CHAIRMAN: I agreed.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: You delete the ‘or’ and replace it with ‘of’.
THE CHAIRMAN: I think that is elementary, we need not put that to a vote it obvious.

Page 5?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes Sir, Page 5.

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, Page 5 the last paragraph.

We agreed to delete the view or opinion of any person about an individual.

It talks about the definition of personal information.
We agreed that when you are defining personal information, it should not include the personal opinion or the view of anybody about 27 you because it may be malicious, it may be born out of bad fate, so personal information cannot include my own opinion about Mr X, his own opinion about Mr X, so we agreed that it should be deleted.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any objection to that?

I am incline to agree.

Facts are sacred and opinions are free so the Lawyers will say.

HON.
HON.

ABDUL L. SESAY: Mr Chairman, I am having a contrary view.

This is electronics and most times we all know that people do have false and real identity.

It means that if I know somebody who is a fraudster, I know him very well that he had defrauded more than three people, should my opinion about that person not be taken into consideration?

THE CHAIRMAN: It is not an opinion; if you know it as a fact, it is the fact.

HON.

ABDUL L. SESAY: Fine.


Again, I think this one should be rephrased, but we should not remove it from this very Clause reason being it says the view or opinion, so the opinion should be fact, but for us deleting ‘G’, will not create that kind of room that is needed here.

THE CHAIRMAN: Well I leave it to the House.

HON.
HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, if you look at ‘G’, it is merely defining or explaining personal information, the word is personal information, and it says ‘the views or opinions of any person about an individual.’ So bearing in mind that this is an electronic age that one’s personal opinion about you is allowed to be expressed it might actually hurt your own integrity, and in protecting peoples’ integrity, we decided to take away peoples opinion about them because your opinion might be correct or wrong, and if the opinion is not correct, the person might find it very difficult to correct it in public or by the time he correct that opinion of his the harm would have been done and that is the reason why we are saying it should be deleted from the Bill.
HON.

ABDUL L. SESAY: Mr Chairman, I believe the reason why this very ‘G’ is placed here is to give people the opportunity to at least identify people who are criminals.

I do 28 not think we should only think about the views or opinions, but how about somebody presenting fact?

THE CHAIRMAN: No, let us draw a line between what is factual and what is a matter of opinion, this is why I said we have to be careful.
Facts are sacred, a fact is a fact and an opinion is somebodies opinion, it is what you think of the other person.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, if you go to testify in court, it is only when you are an expert that you are allowed to opinionate, failing which you testify to facts, so if you give a catch-blank opportunity to everybody to express his or her opinion about you; I will express my opinion about you that is extremely damning to your character, and by the time you rectify that one the harm would have been done to your character.
We are trying to minimise the effect of the law that we do or we make here on the people we represent, that is the purport for us recommending that we delete that particular bit of it.

HON.

ZAINAB C. TARAWALLY: Mr Chairman, I want to reason with the Committee, and sometimes in developing Sierra Leone people will do what they think is right for them.

Can we have a vote on it so that we decide what we think is right because we are making law [Interruption].
THE CHAIRMAN: Frankly, I thought it was so elementary.

A fact is a fact, an opinion is an opinion, that is why the lawyers always tell you facts are sacred, and opinions are free.

HON.

BRIMA MANSARAY: Mr Chairman, I also hold the opinion of the Committee that ‘G’ should be completely deleted because opinions can be malicious sometimes.

So let us put it to vote and we go over it because time is not our friend.
THE CHAIRMAN: I think I will come back to you Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma, will you please move?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: On that note, I move that paragraph G under the definition of personal information be deleted.

29 THE CHAIRMAN: Honourable Members, I hope you are with Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma.

Any seconder?

HON.

BRIMA MANSARAY: Mr Speaker, I so second the Motion.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE CHAIRMAN: Honourable Members, Page 6?
Again we are still under the last segment of the definition area, and there it has been recommended that the word or the words responsible officer be defined, and that should come immediately after qualify trust, is it?

Honourable Members, there is a new definition being introduce to the definition Clause, and the word responsible officer will be define to mean a person authorised to issue digital certificate, that is the proposal from the Legislative Committee.
Are we all in agreement to that or do you want me to put it to a vote?

I hear no objection so it shall be, that is for Page 5 and we are done with the definition Clause.

Honourable Members, Page 7?

Is there anything being proposed by the Legislative Committee?

No, I see you say clauses 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 be approved.

Very well, so let us gain some time.

Page 8?

Page 9?

Page 10?

Page 11?

Page 12?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Mr Chairman, Page 11.
Talking about the time and place of dispatch, here we have ‘the time of dispatch of an electronic message shall be the time when the electronic message leaves an information system under the control of the sender or the party that sent the information on behalf of the sender.’ This was another concern raised when the Bill was introduced here that in a situation where the sender release the information, but let us say there is no network at that time for the message to reach the receiver [Interruption].
THE CHAIRMAN: Or nor electricity.

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Yes.

So I want to propose here that for the time of release of the information, let us think about the time of receipt of the electronic message to be determined by the time the recipient receive the message, but if we say we determine the time [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: Can you direct my attention to the specific Clause?

30 HON.

SAHR CHARLES: I am talking about Clause 10[1] Page 11.

THE CHAIRMAN: What are you suggesting?

HON.


SAHR CHARLES: I am suggesting that we determine the time based on the time the recipient received the message.

THE CHAIRMAN: Let us not confuse the two.

Honourable Member, let me draw your attention to the fact that you are right to say 10 [1] deals with the time of dispatch of an electronic message, 10 [2] deals with the time of receipt of an electronic message, the two are completely separated and dealt with.

Are you satisfied with that now?

HON.


DANIEL B. KOROMA: In addition to that Mr Chairman, 10[1] is the time of the dispatch, 10 [2] is the time of the receipt, 10[3] is the decision making, and that one is in line with contract Law.

In fact, that is the problem that currently exists as a result of the absence of this electronic Act.

The 10[3] is saying it is acceptable at the time the recipient acknowledges receipt not when you sent.
In the present Law, the time you send is what would be obtained in court which is very wrong because sometimes in our present system if you post a particular document that document will not reach for days and then it is presumed that the date of posting is the date that will be acknowledged by the court.
But in this case, we commend this provision because 10[3] says it is the time of receipt, if there is no light then I have not received, if the internet is poor I cannot access, I cannot download, there is no receipt, so until I am able to download that is the time of receipt, and that is always acknowledged on phones or even on computers, the time you are able to download it, so 10[3] settles the difference between 10[1] and 10[2].
THE CHAIRMAN: Honourable Member, the world has progressed from the days when we relied entirely on posting letters, and there was a law to that effect that a contract was concluded as soon as the offer was accepted by putting the offer in the post.

These days we are dealing with electronics, instantaneous communication, and so life changes along with times, so you agree I hope?

You see the difference now sir?

Honourable Member, are you okay now?

31 HON.

SAHR CHARLES: It is okay Mr Chairman.


THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Page 12?

Page 13?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, Page 13 Clause 12 Sub-Clause 3.

The Committee is suggesting that the words ‘does not’ be deleted, and also the word ‘the,’ so it reads where a sender acquires acknowledgement.

THE CHAIRMAN: Hold on, let me get it clearly, you are suggesting the deletion of three words, am I right?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.


THE CHAIRMAN: The words are ‘does’, ‘not’ and ‘the’ in the first line.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: I trust that is accepted by all.

Thank you we do not need to put that to a vote.

Page 14 the top part Sub-Clauses 4 and 5?

Madam Minister.

THE MINISTER: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that part 1, 2 and 3, Clauses 1 to 12 stand part of the Bill as amended.
[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [Parts 1, 2 and 3, Clauses 1 to 12 form part of the Bill as amended.

Parts 4, 5, and 6, Clauses 13 to 26 stand part of the Bill] THE MINISTER: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that parts 4, 5, and 6, Clauses 13 to 26 stand part of the Bill.

[Question Proposed] THE CHAIRMAN: Legislative Chairman, HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 14?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: No amendment on Page 14 Sir.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 15?

32 HON.


HINDOLO M. GAVAO: None on Page 15.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 16?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: None on Page 16.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 17?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: None on Page 17.

THE CHAIRMAN: Are you sure?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: There is on Page 17.

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: In fact on 17, it was so contentious that we even proposed that the House decides on this issue, that is Clause 15 [1] and [2].
Let me read Clause 15 [1] its says, ’’the activities within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the Law of the country on whose territory the person carrying out the activities is established.’’ If you check this provision, we agreed that it is compelling, and it is totally against due process of Contract Law especially between parties.
That is why Sub-Clause 2 even made mention of that freedom, and that freedom under Contract Law cannot be tampered with, it depends on the discretion of the two parties as to which law should apply.

The Committee commended Sub-Clause 2 because in the contract agreement, they are all quiet as to the applicable law, then there should be an answer, there should not be a gap.
In that case, if you are all quiet maybe the drafters forget to state the applicable law in the event of any dispute then we commended Sub-Clause 2 because it makes provision for that.

But that one is totally in contravention of Sub-Clause 1.

Sub- Clause 1 does not go in line with normal contract principles.

In Contract Law the parties are free to choose the applicable law, and that is the agreement that will be tendered in court or even for arbitration as the case maybe.
But if this one says it should be the country in which the activity is established must be the applicable law of that land and we believe it is against normal contract law principles, but for Clause 4 Sub-Clause 2 we 33 agreed, in the event they are silent then there should be an applicable law, and that is the residence country of the consumer.

THE CHAIRMAN: Tell me Honourable Member, I just want to be sure.
Honourable Member, you are a Lawyer, choice of law, conflict of laws, does it sit well with the sovereignty principle?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, may I?

THE CHAIRMAN: By all means if you want to answer that question.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, most often and again in international contracts, the choice of law is left with the parties contracting the agreement.

THE CHAIRMAN: But where they do not make it?


The law of the place where the contract is made prevails.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is the question I am asking.

How does this sit with that principle?

HON.
HINDOLO M. GAVAO: I think this one is violating the principle because it is saying ‘the country on whose territory the person carried out the activity is established.’ Now we all know companies are facetious human beings, my company Gavao and Associate is a human being, so is a person incorporated in Sierra Leone, so if you transact with my company, and you are saying if I breach that contract you can only sue me here in Sierra Leone, and you are in London we are taking the opportunity of maybe you approaching an international tribunal were we can litigate because you are limited to suing that company in the country where it is registered, so it is violating the principle of law where it state that the country where the transaction or where the contract was executed.
Here it is limited to the country where the person is incorporated, and that person may as well be a company because when we ask them 34 they said Amazon or Alibaba do not allow themselves to be sued in any other country but in America.

THE SPEAKER: That flies in the face of the sovereignty of Sierra Leone.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes, that is what the expert from the Ministry of Information said that if you are contracting an electronic transaction with Alibaba for instance or Amazon that there is a provision that says you can only sue them in America, so we are saying being that this is a law we are domesticating, we would want our citizens to actually have an opportunity to actually choose the law under which they will want to litigate.
THE CHAIRMAN: I agree, but if they failed to do that, then the law of the place where the contract is made should prevail.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Exactly, that is what is being captured by Sub-Clause 2 which we commended.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is the presumption.

That is that the consumer is always a person resident in Sierra Leone.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: That is the presumption.

HON.


HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, even before this Law, I understand and I know colleagues will agree with me that Sierra Leoneans are now transacting electronically on international bases.

They are now having international companies chattels from them have been delivered at their places of abode here in Sierra Leone.
So I do not know whether we have a company in Sierra Leone that is engaged in an electronic transaction whereby people from other jurisdiction can actually purchase from us, so the presumption as you rightly mentioned could be that the consumer is always resident in Sierra Leone, hence we purchase from countries abroad.

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: Mr Chairman, on this Clause that we are looking at, I believe we have looked at it critically; the two provisions here are all contradicting.
What I am proposing to this House is that we be specific because at the end of the day we are not 35 just going to say we would let go those that are out of Sierra Leone who are in transaction with somebody residing in Sierra Leone.

Like in Australia for instance, they made mention of the Common Wealth Laws, and even the other States with which the individual is going into this transaction.

So I believe if we make provisions like that it would help in addressing the issue.
THE CHAIRMAN: So, specifically what are you suggesting?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: I am suggesting that we make reference to the Common Wealth Laws, and the other States about what they have in relation to electronic transaction, instead of us leaving it in the sole hands of the person.

THE CHAIRMAN: That means you are excluding the Laws of Sierra Leone?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: No.

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes you are.

HON.


SAHR CHARLES: We are doing it in line with our Laws without neglect to the Common Wealth and the other States because in a situation where everything about the transaction does not take place within the country but another country, you have to consider that one.

THE CHAIRMAN: What is wrong with a service provider coming to Sierra Leone negotiating, and concluding his contract in Sierra Leone and being subject to the Laws of Sierra Leone, what is wrong with that?
You come here to do business and you do not want to be subject to the Laws of the country?

HON.

SAHR CHARLES: We have to be specific in this case instead of leaving it vague like that because when you look at the second part, the freedom of the parties [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: No, let us distinguish two things; where there is a choice of aw, that choice of law prevails, where there is no choice of Law that is the critical question.
Where the parties have not chosen what Law is applicable to their contract, then I see 36 no justification whatsoever for excluding the Law of the country in which that contract is made.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, that is perfectly correct.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is consistent with the sovereignty of our country.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman, hence the reason why we are asking [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: Oh!

By the way, yes Mr Chief Whip.

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Yes Mr Chairman.


Mr Chairman the very idea of domesticating law is to make sure that whatever law you are domesticating is in line with the laws of your country.

There is no way like you rightly put it we can domesticate or have a law that does not conform with our own laws.

You are coming to do business in Sierra Leone the first thing you should do is to register as a company in Sierra Leone.
There is no way we can tell you to come and do business in Sierra Leone and go without adhering to the rules and the regulations of this country.

We will be surrendering our sovereignty to some other group or country and Mr Chairman, I think we should leave it as it is.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Leaving it as it is, is completely denying what you are saying [Undertone] okay, you support the correction?

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Yes.

HON.


HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, if we are to suggest let us look at the sentence again and see if we can do justice to it.

THE CHAIRMAN: Which one, which of the paragraphs?

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Let us look at 1, ’’the activities within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the Law of the country’’, can we qualify it to mean where the contract was executed instead of going forward to say on whose territory the person carrying out the activity is established as rightly captured by you Mr Chairman, the activity within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the Laws of the country.
We can 37 qualify it by saying where the contract was executed; the Law of the country comes in play vividly.

THE CHAIRMAN: Look!

Let us not confuse ourselves.

Honourable Members, let us try to be very simple here, and not be complicated.

When you say the activities within the scope of this Act, this Act addresses activities taking place in the territory of Sierra Leone, not so?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Then why do you need all of that, it is rather tedious.
Simply say the activities within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the Law of Sierra Leone.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Yes Mr Chairman, we agree Sir.

That is very clear Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Can you please move so we can go quickly?

HON.


HINDOLO M. GAVAO: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that Clause 15 [1] reads, “The activity within the scope of this Act shall be subject to the Laws of Sierra Leone.’’ Thereby deleting the words the country on whose territory the person carrying out the activity is established.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: I so second the Motion Mr Chairman.
[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE CHAIRMAN: Now in the light of that, do you need Sub-Clause 2?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: No.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

HON.

HINDOLO GEAVO: Mr Chairman, I move that Sub-Clause 2 of Clause 15 be deleted.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

38 HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, I so second the Motion.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE CHAIRMAN: We have finished with Page 17.

Page 18?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, Page 18 Clause 17 Sub-Clause 3.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: We are suggesting that the ‘fourteen days’ be changed to ‘twenty one days,’ I will read and give the rationale Mr Chairman.
‘‘A person engaged in electronic commercial activities shall re-embossed the consumers for all sums paid by a consumer on a contract cancel under Sub-Section 1 as soon as possible, but not later than fourteen days after the consumer has exercised his right to cancel and reimbursements made beyond that date shall accrued interest at the applicable bank interest.’’ Mr Chairman, at Committee Stage, we agreed that ‘fourteen days’ is too short for reimbursement of all expenses made by the consumer so we ask for an extension from fourteen days to twenty-one days.
THE CHAIRMAN: Put it in a form of a Motion to expedite the Proceedings.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: I move that the period for reimbursement to the consumer under Clause 17 Sub-Clause 3 be extended from fourteen days to twenty-one days.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any seconder?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, I so second.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE CHAIRMAN: Any more on Page 18?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: No Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Page 19?

39 HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Yes Mr Chairman.


Mr Chairman on Page 19 Clause 18, we are recommending that the entire Clause 18 be deleted.

Mr Chairman, the rationale there is saying if somebody sends unsolicited information into your phone or gadget and that person if found guilty shall pay Le10mln or go for twelve months imprisonment.
Mr Chairman, we do not see any harm in somebody pushing or warranting information in one’s phone for that person to be punished for twelve months imprisonment or pay Le10mln, if somebody merely pushes information that you do not want and you have not approved of them if they are sales transactions, you can easily delete them or block that source from which the information is coming from, but to say if you are found wanting of sending those unwanted information you will be punished for twelve months imprisonment or pay Le10mln, we considered this as harsh law on the people of Sierra Leone if passed into Law and that is the reason why we are saying it should be deleted [Applause].
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: In support of that even Sub-Clause 2 of Clause 18 settles the matter, so there is no need for Sub-Clause 3 and we deem it fit that there is no reason to punish somebody with an unsolicited commercial transaction; in other words, I did not ask you to send but you send.

Airtel and Q-cell, but Q-cell to be specific are sending so many unsolicited text messages to us but they should not be punished for that.
That is just one example [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: Where are the Information Technology [IT] experts here?

I look to my left where are they?

I thought it is a common place now for people to receive unsolicited text messages, it is a form of advertisement, people do send.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Some people even cherish it Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, but for the consumer, the safeguard is in two, there is no contract.

40 HON.
40 HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Even Sub-Clause 2 [1: 50: 07] says; where a consumer fails to respond to an unsolicited communication, no agreement shall be deem to be concluded.

In the absence of any agreement why somebody should be fined?

I do not respond to your text messages and that is the end.

THE CHAIRMAN: So, actually what should be deleted is Sub-Clause 3 instead of the whole Clause 18 [Undertone] Clause 18[3] should be deleted.

So let us confine ourselves to Clause 18 [3].

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: We merely said that 18[3] be deleted; ‘‘a person who contradict Sub-Section 1 commit an offence and he is liable upon conviction to a fine not exceeding Le10mln or to an imprisonment not exceeding twelve months or to both fine and imprisonment.’’ Mr Chairman, we are recommending that Clause 18[3] be deleted.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any seconder?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: I so second Mr Chairman.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE CHAIRMAN: Any more on Page 19?

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, Page 19, Clause 19 Sub-Clause 2 ‘‘an Offeror shall acknowledge receipt of the order of a customer by an electronic means without unjustified delay’’, we are recommending that the words ‘unjustified delay’ be replace with the words ‘within seven days of the order’ or we can say ‘within seven days from the date of order.’ So the words ‘unjustified delay’ is a little bit big or open ended so we want to make it specific.

HON.
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes we agreed on that, but in law there should be certainty and when you say unjustified delay it fails to satisfy that certainty provision in law, there should be certainty because my definition of unjustified delay may be different from your own definition of unjustified delay.

41 THE CHAIRMAN: I need some enlightenment here.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Yes Mr Chairman [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: Wait a minute, let us look at it closely; offer and acceptance.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Yes Mr Chairman, it reads ‘‘an Offeror shall acknowledge receipt of the order of a customer by electronic means without unjustified delay’’ it is speaking of the receipt of the order.

So when you say unjustified delay it is catch-blank, it is open ended.

THE CHAIRMAN: Who makes the offer, is it the offeree or the offeror?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: The offeree makes the offer, and the offeror must acknowledge receipt without unjustified delay.

THE CHAIRMAN: Fine.
THE CHAIRMAN: Fine.

When somebody advertises, let me give you an example.

You the customer placed the order, by placing the order you are making an offer and it is left with the advertiser the “offeror” to accept and what that Clause is saying is that when that offer is received by the offeror he should make a determination without unjustified delay as to whether he accept or rejected.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, you know there is this principle in contract law that says if I hear no more I consider the contract valid.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is different.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: No.

Mr Chairman, just if the unjustified delay is interpreted to mean five days, ten days, one month, two months, three months, one year unjustified delay.
So we are trying to qualify the word unjustified delay by giving it a specific time frame that within seven days if you do not hear from me, you consider the offer terminated may be I did not accept it.

That is what we are trying to say here.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes to add to that, I will give another example as well to further explain or allay your fears.
When the one placing the order has made the offer 42 let say for instance; one of the project I soon intend to do in this country is grass cutter husbandry, so in the event I advertise my grass cutters and then a hotel manager has got correspondence from an institution that we intend to do a three days conference [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: Are you admitting that you are breeding them?

HON.
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: In my preamble I said I will soon start this project in Sierra Leone, it actually in fourteen African countries and I want Sierra Leone to make fifteen.

For instance, I made that advertisement [Interruption].

THE CHAIRMAN: You should smoke them as well [Laughter].

HON.
DAINEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker will be a potential customer of grass cutter meat, but by way of another example I made an advertisement that I have grass cutters meats, organic grass cutters that is free from all poison and a hotel manager received an information from an institution that they intend to do three days conference in the hotel conference room and that hotel manager after my own advertisement, being prudent enough may be the conference would be held in the next ten days, there must be timing, in the absence of timing nothing will work, and within that time the hotel manager makes an offer to me, so if I keep holding on that will disable him from looking for alternative and then he will be hoping maybe I will accept until one day to the conference date I remain silent.
In the absence of timing, things will not go well.

THE CHAIRMAN: Okay I can agree with you that the unjustified delay there is not defined.

So you want to put a time limit on it?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: And what time limit are you suggesting?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: We suggested seven days.

THE CHAIRMAN: Is that not too short?

43 HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: We can extend, but we want a time limit to it.

THE CHAIRMAN: Fourteen days I think is reasonable.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, I move that the unjustified delay be giving a time limit to fourteen days from the date of the order.

THE CHAIRMAN: Well, why not put the words ‘after delay’ when you say without unjustified delay in any case not later than fourteen days.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: We take that Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Will you so move then?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, I so move.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any seconder?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, I so second.


THE CHAIRMAN: I hope the rest of us are following?

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Chairman, are we saying fourteen days or fourteen working days?

THE CHAIRMAN: Fourteen days.

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Okay.

THE CHAIRMAN: So at the end of the day, in any case not later than fourteen days from the date of receipt.

Thank you.

Page 20?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Nothing on Page 20 and 21 Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Page 22?

HON.


HINDOLO GEAVO: Yes Mr Chairman, on Page 22 we are proposing that subject to the approval of the House that the entire Clause 22 be deleted.
Mr Chairman, I will 44 read Page 22 for the House, it reads subject to Sub-Section 2; ‘‘A network service provider shall not be subject to any civil or criminal liability in respect of third party material in the form of electronic record to which he merely provide access where liability is limited to; [a] The making, publication, dissemination or distribution of such materials or any statement made in such materials or [b] the infringements of any right subsisting or in relation to such materials.
[2] Nothing in this Section shall affect an obligation bounded on contract.

[b] The obligation of a network services provider as such under a licenses or regulatory regime established under the enactment.
[c] An obligation imposed under any enactment or by a court to remove block or denied access to any material.’’ Mr Chairman, the rationale for us suggesting to delete it is that we do not want laws to be giving immunity to institutions by saying no civil or criminal liability shall lay, you are even preventing people to take actions against you.
If you so have the defence you can go and say I merely did this in this defence, but if you preventing people from taking an action our thought is if I am a service provider and somebody knows that I have that immunity and somebody actually want to injured the reputation of another person, that person can come and send that information through me which I will published because I am the one publishing that third part information, I am not liable to any criminal or civil suit.
He is not publishing it, I am publishing it so that immunity aspect of it is what we are actually saying no to, we do not want people to be immune to litigation, if someone litigate Mr Chairman, I did give an example three months ago somebody came to someone working in one of the popular network companies here for data pertaining to a citizen to be sent to a computer of that person, this person was lucky enough to fall on her own information.
Mr Chairman, that institution was sued and the employee was also sued.

Mr Chairman, we want citizens to have that opportunity in Sierra Leone.

If that company or that employee goes and say or put up a defence well and good, but if you prevent them from being sued, I think it will be a right given to them immunocal to the right of citizens in Sierra Leone that we represent and that was our rational.

45 HON.
45 HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes Mr Chairman, we agreed on the same note that in principle of justice, people must shy away from exempting themselves from been sued.

If you have the right to sue then others should have the right to sue you and the court believes in the justice system.

There is a provision here that says this provisions [Interruption].

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Chairman, HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: I have the Floor.

THE CHAIRMAN: No!
THE CHAIRMAN: No!

He is not asking for the Floor, he is doing something purely perfunctory.

Suspension of S.O 5[2] THE CHAIRMAN: Continue please.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Chairman, under Sub-Clause 2 of Clause 22, even the preamble Sub-Clause 2[a] settles the matter, if that is the case then why exempting yourself?

It says nothing in this Section shall affect an obligation founded under contract.

THE CHAIRMAN: I think I have heard the two of you, you make a very powerful observations.
Madam Minister, your technicians no doubt inserted this provision, is like giving some immunity to service providers, let us hear from you if you have any justification for this particular Clause maybe you inserted it here for a purpose, we do not know, but Parliament is of the view that there is no need to retain Clause 22, what do you say?

THE MINISTER: Thank you very much Mr Chairman.


We note the point by Parliament and we brought this Bill to Parliament because we needed the input of Parliamentarians who are here representing the people of this country.

So, we note the point that has been raised and we will go exactly by what is recommended by this Honourable House.

THE CHAIRMAN: Once it is deleted, it is deleted for good.

46 THE MINISTER: Yes Sir.

THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Honourable Members, can I have a mover and a seconder please.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that Clause 22 be deleted from the Bill.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any seconder?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: I so second.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, there was no recommendation on Clauses 23 and 24.

THE CHAIRMAN: No!

Page 24?

Page 25?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, Clause 25 on Page 25.
Mr Chairman, we are recommending that Clause 25 Sub-Clause 1 be deleted and it reads; ‘for the purpose of complying with this part, a service provider is not obliged to monitor the data which the service provider transmit or stores [b] actively seek for facts or circumstances indicating an unlawful activity.’ Mr Chairman, we are asking for this to be deleted because we want service providers to have the responsibilities to actually ensuring that what goes out is properly monitored.
Mr Chairman, we take the case in point of a newspaper editor, if you are an editor, you have the responsibility to actually ensure that what is being published is monitored by you just so that if anything happened you take responsibility of it, so if we are deleting Clause 22, we might as well delete Clause 25[1] because both are in tandem, they are trying to invade responsibility and we want them to bear responsibility squarely for the job that they do.

47 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.


Madam Minister, again, this is a very important Clause which to a very great extent gives immunity to service providers.

Is there any reason for it?

THE MINISTER: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, as indicated earlier, we were here last week and this Bill was committed to the Legislative Committee to have a thorough look at it and then come back to this House to proffer what is best for the people of this country as a whole.
Mr Chairman, whatever comes from this Committee we take in good faith and we are going to adhere to the recommendations of this Committee.

THE CHAIRMAN: I thank the Honourable Minister.

I feel very gratified with that answer because for a moment I almost felt that the Ministry was under some kind of pressure from the service providers to have this immunity given to them, but with what you have said I am sure Parliament is happy with that.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: We are happy.


THE CHAIRMAN: So, the Motion is?

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: That Clause 25 Sub-Clause 1 be deleted from the Bill.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any seconder?

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: I so second Mr Chairman.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, we are recommending that Clause 26 under miscellaneous be approved.

THE CHAIRMAN: Very well, it is there and it forms part of Page 25.

HON.
HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Mr Chairman, I want you to indulge me kindly to really say thanks to Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma for sitting right through the Committee Stage.

Mr Chairman, I owe him one [Applause].

48 THE CHAIRMAN: I thank you for thanking him in keeping with the spirit of the Bo Declaration.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: Yes Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN: Madam Minister.

THE MINISTER: Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, I move that part 4, 5 and 6, Clauses 13 to 26 stand part of the Bill as amended.
[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [Part 4, 5 and 6, Clauses 13 to 26 stand part of the Bill as amended] THE HOUSE RESUMED THE MINISTER: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I report that the Bill entitled the Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 having gone through the Committee of the whole House with amendments, I now move that the Bill be read the Third Time and passed into Law.
[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [The Bill entitled the Electronic Transaction Act, 2019 being an Act to provide for the formal recognition of the legal effect of Electronic Transactions including Electronic Signatures to provide for the admissibility of Electronic Messages in evidence to provide for the validity or enforceability of contract executed in the electronic form and to provide for other related matters has been read the third time and passed into law] HON.
DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, before the Minister leaves.

At the commencement of our deliberations at Committee level, certain concerns came up and I am preview to those concerns as well.
We have been observing over the past one year that during our committal proceedings, the legal draftsmen has not been available and as a result those amendments that we recommend, when the final Act is been done and presented to the Well or to Members of Parliament, some of us read 49 those provisions and we see the same mistakes, they failed to effect those amendments.

Mr Speaker, I am really recommending that you have your own legal department in Parliament [Applause].
Let us have a legal representative here attached to Parliament that will be reporting to Law Officers, otherwise the legal draftsman was not present and I wonder Madam Minister how those provisions will be effected or will be drafted because you are not the expert, in fact that is not your job although you supervised them.
So my concern is by the time the Act is presented to us we do not want to see the same mistakes because there was no representation from the Law officers Department and we really want to put a stop to that one.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEAVO: On the same note, I cannot agreed with him more.

Mr Speaker, this is an Arm of Government.

Mr Speaker, we have the first Parliamentary Council and we have the drafting section at the Law officers Department.
Mr Speaker, it will do us so much good if 2, 3 or we have a department here called the Legal Department that will be charged with the responsibility of sitting through with the Committee of the whole House or any other Committee to which Bills will be committed whiles they go through this Bills.
Mr Speaker, the purpose for that is these Bills goes through their section before they are laid before the House of Parliament, they draft it and most of the errors that we came across even without going into the mischief of it, these are things we can take up with them easily and it can make our work easier or better.
Mr Speaker, I support the recommendation of my colleague and Mr Speaker, my colleagues will agree with me that if it is desired to be put in a form of a motion we will do just that so that we have a Legal Department in the House of Parliament that will help us through the Legislative process of Sierra Leone [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I take note of what both of you have said and I must confess that the proposals you have made are quite in place.
The Legislative Clerks can bear witness to the fact that in the absence of the draftsman, sitting in the Well whilst we are proceeding on Bills in the absence of that I have converted my office into that of a draftsman and that of a proofreader just to make sure to preserve the integrity of this House to make sure that Laws that leave this House to go out to the public and the 50 international public do not reflect any inadequacies on the path of Government.
I have spent long hours going through each one with a fine tooth comb, I take note of what you have said, but let me advise that the best time for us to deal with that issue is when we come to debate the Budget because it is Budget time and especially dealing with the appropriations we will make that proposal that since the Law Officers Department is not able to service Parliament adequately on this matter, then Parliament should be given the authority to recruit its own Legal draftsmen answerable to Parliament and working with Parliament.
So the lacuna that we have all identified will be filled.

So let us wait till then.

In fact, as we were debating, the Deputy Minister of Finance was asking me when we would take up the debate on the Budget and I replied that I will give an answer at the conclusion of this sitting.

But that is the appropriate time to deal with that issue.

Madam Minister, you are excused.

Thank you.

At this point Acting Leader of Government Business, [Undertone] no please.
Honourable Members, I know that one of the important items on the Order Paper today is the approval of presidential nominees and that has attracted a very full gallery; both upstairs and downstairs.
We know the passion, the interest that appointments have generated in the country, almost in every corner of the country, but I will crave the indulgence of our visitors to understand that the document that would have enabled us to deal with that particular item was not ready at the commencement of this sitting.

Now I understand that document is ready, but you would understand also if we decide to stand the House down for at least fifteen minutes for further consultations to take place.
I assure you when we return, we shall move the Proceedings as expeditiously as possible.

[The House was stood down at 12:20p.m.]

[The House resumed at 12:55p.m.]

IV.

MOTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE PROPOSER: HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS SECONDER: HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE 51 BE IT RESOLVED: THAT THE EIGHTH REPORT OF THE SECOND SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE BE ADOPTED BY THE HOUSE AND THAT THE RECOMMENDATIONS CONTAINED THEREIN BE APPROVED.

1.
1.

Introduction HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service that is charged with the responsibility of vetting Presidential Nominees to select the most fitted and qualified persons to serve in public offices met on Friday 15th November, 2019 and interviewed fourteen Presidential Nominees for appointments to the following positions: i.

Minister of Environment; ii.

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry; iii.


Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs; iv.

Minister of Defence; v. Commissioner of Public Service Commission; vi.

Minister of Water Resources; vii.

Deputy Minister of Defence; viii.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry; viii.

Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to Turkey; ix.

Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School Education; x. Sierra Leone Representative to the Islamic Military Counter Terrorisms Coalition in Saudi Arabia; xi.
Deputy Minister of Environment; xii.

Sierra Leone’s Deputy Ambassador to Turkey; and xiv.

Chairman, Board of Directors-National Water Resources Management Agency.

52 2.

Procedure The Committee conducted the hearing within the ambit of its established criteria.

The Committee requested for public input into the vetting process to ascertain the suitability of the nominees for their proposed appointments and Members strenuously examined the specific documents provided by the nominees.
The Committee also ensured that the nominees were cleared of any criminal records by the Criminal Investigation Department [CID] and further assured itself that the nominees have the relevant qualifications and necessary backup experience to man such important offices of State.
Probing questions put to the nominees covered wide ranging issues pertaining to their track records in other pertinent work situations, declared assets and liabilities, fulfilment of their tax obligations to the state and their visions for a successful and nationally productive tenure.

3.

The Eighth Sitting of the Committee on Appointment on Friday, 15th November, 2019 The following nominees were interviewed on oaths: i. Dr David Moinina Sengeh- Proposed Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School.
Dr David Moinina Sengeh is currently the Director of Science, Technology and Innovation in the service of the Government of Sierra Leone.

He had previously served as manager IBM Research Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa; a Data driven Healthcare, Lead team of more than seven scientists and engineers to deploy a set of health care innovations in Africa.

Prior to that, he had worked as IBM Research Scientist in Kenya.
Reacting to probing questions, Dr David Moinina Sengeh said, ”I am interested in education to improve the lives of the future generations of this country.

I have led programmes in Sierra Leone, Kenya, and South Africa worth Millions of Dollars to bring scientific innovations to young people who are not just formal institutions, but also informal institutions.
So to move 53 scientific innovative ideas across the country is something I have done over the last many years which I believe is my passion’’ Dr David Moinina Sengeh assured the Committee of his determination to make education the assured hope for the school going pupils of this country.

Answering to further questions, Dr David Moinina Sengeh said that “there are two million six hundred and sixty thousand six hundred and twenty eight registered students in Sierra Leone today.
Correct data have to be used for planning and monitoring.’’ Dr David Moinina Sengeh called for the involvement, collaboration and cooperation of all to find solutions to the problems of education in this country.

‘‘If we all care about the future of Sierra Leone, if we all care about our children and grandchildren, if we all care about what we expect them to be, then I think we should all seat and agree to find solutions to the educational problems’’ he said.
In his determination to change the narrative to educational problems, Dr David Moinina Sengeh said, “in my office I have a set of principles; I do not receive gifts, I have never received gifts in my office or at state House, I would make sure that those principles are clear.

I do not give gifts, nor do I ask for gifts so I do not expect gifts.

If you want to have a conversation with me, let us talk about education, let us talk about our children that is what I want.
In terms of prioritization, His Excellency the President is focussed on human capital development for a good reason, and I think that is the best opportunity to take care of our development, and to solve our bread and butter issues” [Applause].

ii.

Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh-Proposed Minister of Defence Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh is a security sector management expert with United Nations work experience in the Gambia, and Southern Sudan.
Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh has also served in the Office of National Security [ONS] as National Security Coordinator and Head of ONS.

Responding to the Committee’s inquires, Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh assured the Members that he will ensure that military officers 54 realize that the army is a national institution and they should be working for the national interest at all times.

Soldiers he said must move away from partisan politics.
‘‘As citizens’’, he said; “they have every right to belong to a political party, but that is where it stops.

They are not to take sides in any political matters.” Reacting to further prompts, he said; ‘‘I actually want to go in and see how far things have changed from where I left, I will join my colleagues to resolve whatever issues that is at hand at the moment.

Basically, I intend to go in there and add quite a bit of credibility to what they are doing.
I will need to join my colleagues in the Ministry and see how far they have gone with addressing their difficulties and together, I intend to support the positive approach towards resolving them” [Applause].

iii.

Miss Manty Tarawallie - Proposed Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs.

Miss Manty Tarawalllie is the Executive Leader, Dankawallie Development Association [home and aboard] and Chief Executive Officers 4M Solutions Sierra Leone from 2015 to date.
She has been serving country Director Marie Stopes Sierra Leone.

Responding to Members inquiries, Miss Manty Tarawallie said ‘‘working together is paramount between the two Ministries; that is, the Ministry of Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs.

Many issues overlap and working in collaboration with other Ministries is very paramount.

I assure you that will happen and we will be working together to represent Sierra Leone both internally and externally.
Let me use this platform to say thanks to the President for firstly making women’s issues his flagship programme.

In terms of administration, I bring leadership to the table having being a female institution Leader for the past fifteen years.

I have been in the donor sectors and management for a long time and I know the 55 issues.
Most importantly, I want to express my gratitude to His Excellency the President for nominating the first woman from Falaba, Koinadugu District and the first Korankoh woman for such a high office’’ [Applause].

iv.
iv.

Mr Philip Karimu Lansana- Proposed Minister Water Resources Mr Philip Karimu Lansana is a professional Civil Engineer with over thirty years work experience in the design of Water and Sanitation Infrastructure, Project Management, Civil Engineering Infrastructure Construction, Financial Management and General Management.

He has provided technical and management consulting services in water and sanitation to the Local Government of South Africa.
In his response to probing questions, Mr Philip Karimu Lansana said, ”I have been the Managing Director of Sierra Leone Water Company since July last year.

When I took over, the first thing I discovered was the misuse of resources.

I decided on a tour of provincial water facilities.

I discovered that service delivery was inefficient.

The services provided by especially a company called ‘The Angelic’ did not meet standards.
We then developed a project which is currently on-going for better service delivery’’ [Applause].

v. Mr Dennis K. Vandi-Proposed Minister of Agriculture Mr Denis K. Vandi is a retired civil servant with over thirty years work experience in Public Sector Management and he is currently a senior Permanent Secretary with a wealth of work experience in the Ministry of Agriculture, Education, Tourism, Labour, Internal Affairs, Local Government, Defence, and Finance.
Answering to the Committee’s inquiries, Mr Dennis K. Vandi said, “My preliminary background before entering into the Public Service was agriculture.

I have a BSC in Agriculture.

I have a farm in Kenema District.

Let me assure you that I will be in a better position because I know most of the issues that are happening within the Ministry.

When I assume office, I will be inviting this 56 Committee and the Committee on Agriculture to be deeply involve in my activities.
I assure you all that I will be able to change the attitude within the Service to ensure better productivity.

I also assure you that the people of the nation will benefit from agriculture’’ [Applause].

vi.

Mr Paul A.S. Minah-Proposed Sierra Leone’s Deputy Ambassador to Turkey Mr Paul A.S Minah is a retired Civil Servant.

He served as administrative officer in the Ministries of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
He successfully completed the Area Focused Training Course for building Peace in Sub- Sahara Africa at Hiroshima International Cooperation programme of the Government of Japan [JICA].

In his interview, Mr Paul A.S Minah said “My boss and I are going to work in perfect collaboration, we are going to work as a unit so that we could achieve the goals for which we are sent for in the benefit of our country.

I will always respect the Ambassador because he is my boss.
I will work with his plans and his set agenda so that the President and the entire Sierra Leone would be proud of us.

We will ensure that we aggressively use the diplomatic means for Sierra Leone to benefit from the goodies of Turkey” [Applause].

vii.

Mr Stephen Syril James Jusu- Proposed Deputy Minister of Environment Mr Stephen Syril James Jusu is a retired Civil Servant who once served as Environmental Health and Safety Manager at the National Minerals Agencies.
He had previously served as Chief Environment Officer of the Environmental Protection Department.

In his response to the Committee’s inquires, Mr James Jusu assured the Committee that he and his Minister have been friendly co-workers for a long time.

”With the experience we have over the years, we use to sit together, discuss and assist the Government to improve on the integrity of environmental 57 management in this country.
He and I put together the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] Act, and we created the EPA and we used to mainstream Environmental Management issues to other Ministries.

Our level of cooperation has been always high’’ [Applause].

viii.

Cornel Retired Muana Brima Massaquoi-Proposed Deputy Minister of Defence Cornel Retired Muana Brima Massaquoi served as Chief of Staff, and has over twenty seven years of military work experience in different ranks of the army.
He has served as negotiator at first Committee level at the United Nations on Global Disarmament issues, Small Arms and Light Weapons and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Reacting to the prompts of the Committee, Cornel Retired Muana Brima Massaquoi had this to say “I want this Committee to know that if I am approved by this Honourable House as Deputy Minister, I would have a boss; the Minister, who I would have to work with, and would follow his strategic plans.
That notwithstanding, I think I have the responsibility to advise and make an input in whichever directions he wants us to go.

A new Ministry is not without teething challenges, the challenges are not new, and we are very much aware that they would pose a lot of threats, especially with regards to the welfare of men, We would endeavour to do our best for our Fatherland’’ he said.

Mr Speaker, I advise that we jump the next nominee because he is not around.

ix.
ix.

Mr Mohamed Kaisamba-Proposed Ambassador to Turkey Mr Mohamed Kaisamba is a Retired Bank Manager with over twenty years work experience in the Public and Private Sectors.

He has an in-depth understanding of managing people including foreign delegations.

Responding to the Committee’s inquires, Mr Mohamed Kaisamba said that Turkey is an interesting place.

”I want to change the narratives of Ambassadors.


Being an Ambassador is not just about going to cocktails and dinners, I want to be an Ambassador with a 58 difference.

I would like to explore the possibility of a synergy with other missions and see where they are, what they have done, and how we can work collectively to get what we need from our host countries.
I think we have to be diplomatically aggressive enough to established strong bilateral ties with countries like Azerbaijan for their oil, gas and for them to invest in our country’’ [Applause].

x. Mr Ansumana I.M Swaray - Proposed Chairman Board of Directors Sierra Leone Water Resources Management Mr Ansumana I. M. Swaray is a Scientist, a Specialist in Water, Environment and Natural Resources Management.
He has a strong background in Natural and Social Science, Engineering and Management of Water Resources, Rural and Urban Water Supply and Sanitation and Water Utility Regulation.

In his interview, Mr Ansumana I. M. Swaray deposed that the National Water Resources Management Agency [NWRMA] is for the management of fresh Water catchment areas.

NWRMA is a new agency, and required competent skills and dedicated team to manage its resources.
To have good water for drinking purposes, we have to manage the catchment area or we would have issues with the water that goes into our houses for drinking and other purposes.

Answering to further questions, Mr Ansumana I.M.

Swaray said that, ‘‘The Executive Director of NPAA is a member of the NWRMA Board.

This means that the Agency and the Board of NPPA have to work together as a team to resolve many water related issues.
Some of them are very crucial and perennial, but could be surmounted by a dedicated team.

I was part of the team that put together the first National Water Hygiene Policy, I was also a party to the drafting and finalizing of the Act that led to the creation of this NWRMA Agency.

So with my experience, I think I will be most helpful in improving Water Resources Management’’ [Applause].

59 xi.
59 xi.

Mr Ahmed Abu Kemokai - Proposed Member-Public Service Commission [PSC] Mr Ahmed Abu Kemokai is a retired Civil Servant who served as Permanent Secretary in several Ministries.

He was Clerk of Parliament in 2007.

Reacting to the Committee’s prompts, Mr Ahmed Abu Kemokai deposed that he was once Clerk of Parliament.

‘‘In fact, I started as Editor of Debates, later promoted to Deputy Clerk and then Clerk.

I gathered a lot of experience when I was in Parliament.
We have what we call transferable skills, so I want to assure you that if I go to Public Service Commission, I will endeavour to do better than what I did in Parliament regarding the recruitment of Public Servants for Government’’ [Applause].

xii.

Professor Foday Moriba Jaward, Proposed Minister of Environment Professor Foday Moriba Jaward is an acclaimed international Environmentalist who once served as the Executive Chairman of the Sierra Leone Environmental Protection Agency [EPA].
He is a product of the University of Sierra Leone, Fourah Bay College and lectured Chemistry and other environmental related courses at the Njala University in the 90s before proceeding to the universities of Florida in United State of America and Lancaster in the United Kingdom where he gained both academic and professional expertise in the environment.
In his respond to the difference he would create as a Minster compared to that of the Executive Chairman of EPA, he said, ‘‘having a Minister of the Environment would now allow Sierra Leone to participate fully in all high level environmental segment meetings that do not give access to head of Agencies, Parastatals for country representations.

He concluded that Sierra Leone had missed lots of funding and other opportunities due to the anomaly’’ [Applause].

60 xiii.
60 xiii.

Retired Cornell Simeon N. Sheriff, Proposed Sierra Leone representative of the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition in Saudi Arabia Cornell Retired Simeon N. Sheriff, Former Deputy Minister of Defence from 2018 to 7th November, 2019.

He served the Sierra Leone Military from 1979 to 2016 and retired as a Cornell.
Reacting to the Committee, Cornell Sheriff said that ‘‘this assignment came to us as a country in 2015 under the auspices of the United State and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to cover the entire West Africa sub-region.

Terrorism is eating up the West Africa Region and that means the necessity arises for Sierra Leone to really have a representative alongside with other Africa counties.

I have served as the Minister and I know all of these issues and I believe I am quite capable.
I will ensure that I represent the interest of Sierra Leone very well and I use my experience, learn from others and help to eradicate or combat terrorism’’ [Applause].

Recommendation[s] Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Committee adjudged the following Presidential Nominees to be fit and qualified for this proposed appointment and is recommended to the House for approval: i.

Professor Foday Jaward- Minister of the Environment; ii.

Mr Dennis K. Vandi- Minister of Agriculture and forestry; iii.
Miss Manty Tarawallie- Minister of Gender and children’s affair; iv.

Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh- Minister of Defence; v. Mr Ahmed Abu Kemokai- Commissioner public service Commission; vi.

Mr Philip K. Lansana- Minister of water resource; vii.

Cornell Retired Muaa B. Massaquoi-Deputy Minister of Defence; viii.

Mr Mohamed Hassan Kaisamba-Sierra Leone Ambassador to Turkey; ix.
Dr David Moinina Sengeh- Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School; 61 x. Cornell Retired Simeon N. Sheriff- Sierra Leone representative to the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition in Saudi Arabia; xi.

Mr Stephen S. James Jusu -Deputy Minister of Environment; xii.

Mr Paul Ansumana S. Minah- Deputy Ambassador to Turkey; and xiii.

Mr Ansumana L.M.

Swarray –Chairman, Board of director National Water Resources Management.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Eight Report is the unanimous decision of the Committee.

I therefore move that the Eight Report of the Second Session of the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service be adopted by the House and that the recommendations contain therein be approved.

Hon.

Chairman THE SPEAKER: I thank the Acting Leader of Government Business.

Any seconder?

HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I so second.

[Question Proposed] HON.


BASHIRU SILIKIE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, today we have nominees presented to this House by His Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio for appointing these nominees.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I do not envy their offices.

Some few months ago others were here for approval, today we have new set and definitely as a Parliament, we will do due diligence.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to begin by thanking the Committee on Appointments and Public Service for thoroughly interviewing these nominees.

To the nominees, if you look at the galleries, you have plenty people coming to cheer you up.

Few weeks, few months down the line, these are the same people that would be shouting your names for the things that you would not be doing appropriately.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, these positions that His Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio have nominated these candidates for public positions, you are not there because you are handsome or beautiful, you are not there because you 62 are the best persons, you are there because the President trust in you.

We as a Parliament definitely believe the decision taken by His Excellency the President because it is not a bad decision.
We expect that when you go into your various offices please perform to the best of your abilities because excuses will not be tolerated.

We have a social contract between ourselves as Government and the people of this country.

You are going to be pivotal in writing the Manifesto for the year 2023; if you do not perform definitely we would suffer and we do not want to, so we are advising you to do due diligence to yourself and to the people of Sierra Leone.
Some of you will not answer the calls of Members of Parliament when you go to your various offices [Applause].
Thankfully, I have been a Member of the Appointments Committee and when some of these nominees are appointed; they will call us almost every day to know what is happening and we sometimes pardon them in the interview because we want them to start work, but when once they go to those offices, when Members of Parliament visit their offices, they do not even open their doors, some of them do not even answer their calls, we are not going to your offices to beg; we are going to the offices because we are Members of Parliament representing the people of Sierra Leone [Applause].
Whenever we go to your office, we are going with the interest of the people, we are going to cry for our constituents.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me use this forum to make it clear to the entire public that Members of Parliament are not responsible for development, it is the duties of the Executive arms, the Ministers together with their Deputies, Board Members and the Councils to execute development, but at the end of the five years, the people of Sierra Leone voted us out for the things that are not our responsibilities.
It is very hard to explain to our people that we are not responsible for development, but because the Ministers and those that are concern are not doing the work that they are supposed to be doing, Members of Parliament carries the blame and also suffer for it.
80% of Members of Parliament who were here the last Parliament are not here, we are not Vote Controllers, we do not carry opportunities for our people, we do not carry programmes for our people, we are here to pass laws, we do oversight, even when we are doing oversights, sometimes it is very hard to access you, we suffer for your ineptness, we suffer for the things you do not do, we suffer for 63 the things you do not deliver for and as Members of Parliament, we have come to a conclusion that from now henceforth, we will be following you to your Ministries to make sure you perform because if you do not perform, we are the ones that will suffer[Applause].
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in the Appointments Committee, we were very convinced that they were going to perform, but when they go to their various offices, we cry them down daily.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, before I summarise let me talk about few of them and I will start with my elder brother, the Ambassador to Turkey [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Ambassador to Turkey is a man that I have known for a very long time and he is very perseverance.
Mr Speaker, when we were in Opposition, he is one of the people that stood with us, it was a very difficult moment, it was a trying time in this country.

When we took up governance some of us thought he was going to be part of the first appointees, unfortunately he was not, but he still stood his grounds and said I am a real ‘Paopa’ [Applause].

At some point when appointees were named, we thought he was going to be appointed again, and I remember I asked him why are you not taking another appointment?
He said he love challenges.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the President have challenge Mr Mohamed Hassan Kaisamba, please go to Turkey, deliver for this country, we will not take excuses.

The President rely on you and he expect you to develop the bilateral tie between us and that region, please do the President good and by extension do this Parliament good.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, of course Professor Foday Jaward has done his best at the EPA and now you have a huge responsibilities.
Before now you used to have the supervising Minister, today you are now going to supervise the Ministry.

Of course it is no secret that global warming, climate change are the orders of the day, these are the subject areas that people talk about so please we expect when you go to that Ministry, please prove His Excellency the President right and all of us know that His Excellency the President is a man that does not entertain jokes.
If you do not perform, it is the responsibilities of Members of Parliament to interview and approve the next set of nominees in the Committee.

64 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me talk about the new Minister of Defence.

Of course that is my area, S.O 2 ‘Mi nar soja pikin’.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, there is no way we have the Minister of Defence here that I cannot address.

Mr Minister of Defence, I am your Deputy.

You are going into a Ministry that is extremely very much challenged.
At a time like this Mr Minister, if approve you are going to face with a situation where you see Lieutenant Cornell and Cornell’s riding on motorcycle or ‘kekehs’.
At a point like this, Mr Minister if you go to that Ministry, you have Military Officers that have not received rice for a very long time, at a point like this you are going to take a Ministry where accommodation is a problem, you have very senior officers languishing in some of the homes that they are not even supposed to be, and you are going into a Ministry where procurement is a challenged, you are going into a Ministry where a lot have to be done for our serving personnel.
Please Mr Minister, if you are approve by this House, the health sector also is a challenging area in that Ministry, the opportunities given to you is not to celebrate, but you should take your time, sit down and think about the challenges you are going to face, a lot of people are running behind you today, a lot of them will criticize you tomorrow.
Please, that Ministry is so huge, the challenges are so many and His Excellency the President has given you the full portfolio as a Minister, he used to be the Minister, today you are now the Minister and you have a Deputy.

When you go to that Ministry, yourself and your Deputy please make sure you perform, if you do not perform, the SLPP will be voted out, and we do not want anybody to fail.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Mr Dennis Vandi of course for some of us who have been around the corridors of this Government and around the corridors of the SLPP is a household name and for those who are coming from Kenema, I see a lot of the Members of Parliament from Kenema that would not be opportuned to speak [Undertone] no Mr Speaker, I am coming from Bo in a town called Gembeh and we do share boundary with Kenema.
Mr Vandi, you have served this Government and the President is a man that does not play.

For some of us who have known the President for so long, and who knows the relationship, it was very surprising for us to know and 65 hear of what has happen.
It shows the President is a man that does not take nonsense, is a man that wants to move this country forward, whatever issues that has happen, I am very sure that he is not very convinced that where he has nominated you for is the right place that you belong, and definitely I am appealing for you not to disappoint the President as well as Members of this House that will approve you.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me conclude with the only woman from Falaba and the only Korankoh female Minister [Applause].

Members of Parliament from Koinadugu and Falaba, you have seen what the President have done for you.

In the history of this Parliament, I have been in this Parliament for seven years, I have never seen a female Minister or Deputy nominated to this House.
Please my colleagues, do her good by supporting her and please consider His Excellency the President in 2023 for just her nominations [Applause], consider giving us more seats because if you give us more seats, we will give you more nominees.

We believe women are pivotal in the development of this country.

We believe the Ministry is so huge, we believe women should not be left behind that is why we have now created a new Ministry for women and children [Applause].
Madam Minister, from the galleries you have if not 40% of the people that are supporting you, we hope and pray that you will not disappoint us because we have heaped praises on you and other speakers will be doing the same.
Please when you go think of His Excellency, think of our party manifesto and as a Government, think of this Parliament, think of the Committee that interviewed you, please do us good, perform and save the face of the women of this country, perform and help the children of this country, perform and make us all proud so that we can get more nominees from Koinadugu and Falaba, so that the President can give us more female nominees because I know the women are out there asking for more, perform and prove the President right so more women will be given the opportunities to serve and more will be given to the people of Falaba and Koinadugu.
I thank you very much Mr Speaker and Members of Parliament.

I second the motion for these nominees to be approve.

Thank you very much [Applause].

66 THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution.

Order!
Order!

I think this is a convenient moment for me to make a few recognitions; the Honourable Alhaji Alpha Khan; a Former Member of Parliament and Minister [Applause], the Honourable Bintu Mayahs; Former Member of Parliament [Applause], a man with whom I joined politics in the same year [Undertone] the glorious year of 1982, the Honourable Dr Sheiku Sesay [undertone] if that is a reminder that is time for me to retire, I am sorry to disappoint you [Laughter] I am still going strong like Johnny Walker.
You are also very anxious today, calm down and take your seat, I have not finish, and I have a very long list.
The Chief of Defence Staff Lieutenant General Brima Sesay [Applause] Chief Immigration Officer my good friend, Mr Mohamed Bundu of Nassit [Applause], the Honourable Joe Bleh Former Deputy Minister of Defence [Applause], Madam Kona Koroma [Applause], we have also the Deputy Chairman and Leader of the SLPP Mr Alhaji Umaru Dumbuya [Applause], and talking about political parties, the one and only, no replicate, no duplicate, Madam Fatmata Sawaneh who is the Women’s Leader [Applause].
Now let me guide what is going to happening in the few minute; first of all no speaker will now enjoy the privilege of more than five minutes, except of course the two Leaders who will wind up the debate.

I am going to limit the debate to three speakers from either side [undertone] yes I know, some people will naturally have to be disappointed.
I have already received a list from the Leadership to my left and I am going to be guided by it, I have not received a list from the Leadership to my right, but I do take note of the fact that some people had approached me in my Chambers and I do not know whether I will be able to accommodate all of them.

Let me start with the Honourable Lahai Marah.

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, today I will be representing my tribe and that is the Korankoh tribe.
If you look around the galleries you will see white T-shirt printed with the name ‘Ferensolah.’ Mr Speaker, ‘Feresollah’ is an umbrella name covering the Korankoh tribe.

THE SPEAKER: Meaning what?

67 HON.

LAHAI MARAH: Mr Speaker, I will give you the meaning of ‘Ferensolah’ later on during the debate, and I will contact the Acting Leader of ‘Ferensolah’ who is Dr Sheiku Sesay to explain in details.
During the approval of the Deputy Minister of Justices Umaru Napoléon Koroma, I touched on respect, respect for the Korankoh tribe.

We are no longer a minority tribe, we have two Districts; Koinadugu District we are in majority, and Falaba District we are in absolute majority.

Mr Speaker, we do have section chiefs, town chiefs in the Kono District.
When you go to Tonkolili Mr Speaker, we have chiefdom, Bo, Kenema and beyond, we have business people that are Korankohs and therefore Mr Speaker, we are no longer a minority tribe.

Of course we are very obedient, respectful and loyal.

Mr Speaker, I will use this opportunity to say thank you to the Former President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma for recognising Korankoh people in key positions of trust [Applause].
During that period, Dr Kaifala Marrah was appointed as a Chief of Staff now you have the Chief Minister and then he was also appointed as Minister of Finance, also Foreign Affairs Minister and Bank Governor which are very key positions.

I also want to appreciate His Excellency the President Dr Julius Maada Bio for given us a very prominent Korankoh man by the name of Brigadier Retired Kellie Conteh, I salute you sir [Applause].
Mr Speaker, Kellie Conteh is a Korankoh man which means he is very obedient, very respectful, and very loyal to his master.

THE SPEAKER: Qualities that I suggest you follow, very good qualities [Laughter].

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: Mr Speaker, I am also a Korankoh man with these qualities.

My colleagues from Bo, my Barracks brother spoke about the conditions of service for the Military.

Let me alley your fears; Brigadier Kellie Conteh is aware of those challenges, he has been there before.
In fact, let me quote what he said in this report Mr Speaker, ‘‘I actually want to go in and see how far things have changed from where I left it.’’ He is not a stranger in that Ministry.

‘‘I will join my colleagues to resolve whatever issues that is at hand at the moment.’’ I know Brigadier for a long.

For us the Korankoh, especially from my constituency; constituency 42, covering Kulor, Saradu, Nieya Chiefdom and Delmandugu, this is a right moment for us.
We do not have any other time to pay Brigadier Kellie Conteh, but this particular time and nothing else but to say 68 thank you for what you have been doing for us [Applause].

We do not have any doubt in you and we know that you will represent us well and you will also represent the Korankoh tribe well.

If your appointment is for a political reason, then his Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio is right.
If your appointment is for you to add value into this New Direction Administration by correcting the wrong things, then His Excellency the President is right.

Politically, you command huge Korankoh populace; no doubt about that one [Applause].

I remember a Korankoh Organization which you formed and called Neiya Kankaylay Association [NEKA] and some of us that are here today went through NEKA ‘Neiya Wan wod Association’ for us the Neiya people to come together and develop our Chiefdom.
You have contributed a lot and on behalf of my constituency and on behalf of the people of Falaba, I want to say congratulations to you in advance [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, our sister Manty Tarawallie is indeed a woman of substance and she is a Korankoh woman with the qualities expressed earlier; respectful, loyal and obedient.

I use the word ‘strong woman’ because we have campaigned for two elections in constituency 040 and I can confess that she is a very good strategist [Applause].
You used the women in that constituency by providing them with Micro Finance support as a way of convincing them to change their political belief to what you believed in.

Mr Speaker, she is a strong woman and during the Local Council Election, this particular woman was all over Falaba District; talking to the women that this is our time, give us the opportunity for us to lead you and today you are here as a Minister of Gender Affairs; congratulations in advance.
I want to say thanks to His Excellency the President for your appointment, we are happy [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in conclusion, as the Chairman for Water Resources Committee, let me talk to the proposed Minister for Water Resources.

You are going to a very key Ministry.

If we are talking about the Free Quality Education, it will not succeed without us getting affordable clean water.
If we are talking about the Free Health Care, it will not succeed without us getting affordable clean water.

For the Free Quality Education, we know what happens if there is a water shortage; our young 69 children will surely visit far distance to fetch water; along the way, we are in Sierra Leone and we know the result.
And therefore, if you read the Budget; paragraph 212 Page 39, His Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio has allocated for your recurrent expenditure about Le11.3bln and also in supporting your capital project, you have Le21.0bln, definitely that is a huge resources that you will be managing.

You have other development partners that will be pouring in very huge resources again.
Of course you have been in that particular Ministry; you are not a stranger, we have no doubt in your capability, we know you are able to do it, we know you are a strong man; you will solve the water crisis in this country.

Again Sir, as a Chairman of Water Resources Committee, we will be coming there soon [Laughter] and let me inform you that you have a very strong Chairman.
I was the Deputy Chairman for Public Account Committee and you know what I did in that Committee and now that I am the Chairman of Water Resources Committee, you will be dealing with a very strong Chainman and definitely we are going to make sure we help this particular Government succeed in solving the water problem.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Board Chairman is a very young man with skills.

I interacted with him some few days back [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: I have been more than accommodating.

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: He is very energetic and very willing to help the water situation in Sierra Leone.

THE SPEAKER: And with that?

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: And with that Mr Speaker, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

Once more on behalf of ‘Ferensolah,’ on behalf of Falaba and my constituency, I want to say congratulations in advance to you Brigadier Kellie Conteh and Manty Tarawallie if approved [Applause].
THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution.

I have two more recognitions to make; the District Council Chairman elect of Falaba District, Mr Ibrahim Sorie Sesay [Applause].

May I also recognise Mr Lahai Lawrence Lema, Deputy Minister 70 of Internal Affairs [Applause].

I am afraid I have to disappoint a good number of you.

I know the Members of Parliament from Kenema and Kailahun are very eager.

Let me recognise Honourable Aloysious Bockarie.

HON.
HON.

ALOYSIOUS A. BOCKARIE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker for giving me the Floor.

I want to take this opportunity to thank His Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio for nominating these people.

Today, we have a set of people that the President has nominated to join the other people that have been nominated already to take Sierra Leone to paradise.

The President has done a good job in the past because most of the people he has nominated; over 90% has excelled and they have done so well.
I believe even the people he has nominated today are going to deliver to the people of Sierra Leone.

One nomination that the President did that was so controversial was the appointment of the Anti-Corruption Commissioner; it was so controversial even in this House of Parliament because there were some of us against the approval of Francis Ben Kaifala, but it happened because God knew he was sending us an Angel, he was sending somebody to free this country from corruption [Applause].
The Anti- Corruption Commission has been in existence for over seventeen years, but what Francis Ben Kaifala have done in one and half year, nobody have never done it before.

That tells us that His Excellency is very cautious, he takes his time to select people that are very sober minded to be nominated and that is why we have succeeded to be where we are.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, coming to the point more directly for today, I strongly believe these people before us are going to do well.
THE SPEAKER: You have three minutes to go.

HON.

ALOYSIOUS A. BOCKARIE: Thank you Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will first of all talk about Professor Jaward who is from my constituency and I can boastfully tell this Honourable House that Professor Jaward work immensely to bring the Paopa Government into governance.

He was with us, we campaigned together, went to villages, mobilised people, he spent his own resources during the elections and today he is here before us.
He has been in the EPA for more than a year.

I strongly believe that the good work he has done over the years has led the EPA to be 71 a separate body from that of the Ministry of Lands.

He has done so well and I have no doubt that he will continue to move that Agency from where it was to a better place.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me talk about another nominee who is Mr Dennis Vandi.

I worked with Mr Vandi for more than twenty years ago in the Eastern Area Project.
He was one of those young dynamic people that were appointed.

He worked under the Late Dr Harry Will and whosoever knew Dr Will can tell you that he was a very meticulous man.

So whoever was able to work and excel under him, that person can work anywhere.

So I have no doubt that Mr Vandi can do it again in that Ministry.

Of course he has been in that Ministry; he worked for the Ministry for so many years, he has been in that Ministry and he knows the problem there.
I am pleading to him to continue making the people of Sierra Leone proud.

Mr Speaker Honourable Members, Philip K Lansanah was my Lecturer, he is a very hard working man, he has been in that Ministry for some time and he is now going into the same Ministry as a Minister.

I know he is going to do well.

My advice to all the nominees is for you to please be nice to people on your way going up because you will come across the same people on your way down.
Before now, there were people we have appointed here, like my colleague was saying, when you call them or when you go there to talk about issues bordering the nation, they do not have time to talk to you.

It has happened even to senior people in this Well.

I want you to know that we have all put our efforts together to bring the ‘Paopa’ Government in governance, therefore we are going to be respectful to you and you too should be respectful to us.

When we want to talk to you please give us audience.
On that note, I want to urge my colleagues that we give these nominees speedy approval for them to go into their various offices to do their work.

I thank you Mr Speaker for according me this opportunity today to speak.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution.

I now recognise the Honourable Abdul Kargbo.

HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, if you can check the Hansard of Parliament and other Parliament records, you would agree with me that my list contribution has been on appointments.

It is 72 deliberate because when I graduated from Fourah Bay College, I recommended a small boy to be helping in a house for cleaning, the boy had to cart away with everything.

Since that day Mr Speaker, I will not recommend somebody I do not trust.
That is why when we have the appointees in front of us, I was convinced internally and externally that I needed to add my voice on credible people that are amongst the appointees.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I do not know all of the appointees so I will not comment on all of them.

For those I know amongst them are very credible and I am going to comment on them.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, there is a curse on any Sierra Leonean who want this nation to fail because we do not have another country; we have this country as our one and only country; so all of us want this country to progress.

I have always said that we are in Opposition but we are not opponents to development; we are proponents to development [Applause].

At the end of the day you would have to make comparative analysis between Sierra Leone and Liberia, between Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Do you want Sierra Leone to be last because our party is not in power?

No, we do not want it!

That is why when nominees are here, we do due diligence; we make sure we do not deliberate on them based on party lines.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, allow me to talk on the proposed Minister of Water Resources.

I have not known him for a while; I met him about two or three weeks ago when we went to Bo, Kenema and Blama to undertake our oversight function.
At that time he was the Director of Sierra Leone Water Company [SALWACO].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I was amazed, I was stunned and I was totally flabbergasted at his experience in that very Ministry.

I am not giving an opinion on him because he is my colleague Engineer, I am giving an opinion on him because he had the experience we needed for that oversight function.
I could remember when I was asking the Engineers to produce World Health Organization [WHO] standard for water treatment and to produce the result that they have had during the period of water testing; the then Director who is to be Minister few hours from now, was there and he was very much prompt to tell them that the Honourable is right to ask you for these things and these things are very necessary.
When we went to Blama, the unfinished project that 73 Government had spent over $2mln on; Water treatment containers are there lying unused for over two years, Mr Philip K. Lansana was not happy; he was curious, that shows he love this country and we need people in governance that love the country more than the political party they came from.

I am sure he knows the limitation of that very Ministry and he is in the right capacity to transform that Ministry.
Mr Speaker Honourable Members, I just learnt couple of seconds ago that I am not the only BBB here amongst Members of Parliament.

For those who do not know the meaning of BBB, please pardon me.

It means ‘Born Barracks Borbor.’ I was born to a Military Officer with the nomenclature; WO 218161248.

I therefore take very seriously Ministry of Defence and the Military.

I was educated, I was schooled, I was groomed and I was brought up by the monies paid to Military Officers.
So I am forever going to be loyal to the forces.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we know what our fathers went through; to educate us it was not easy.

I am saying this because I want Government to pay keen attention to the forces, more especially the Military.

My father’s salary was not enough; my mother had to be a fishmonger to ensure that my shadows darken the walls of Fourah Bay College.

These are people who are losing their lives on a daily bases when Sierra Leone is in problem.
The Minister of Defence has enormous responsibility.

We can only talk about development when there is peace, we can only talk about progress when there is sanity and those whose sole responsibility is to keep the peace are the Military and Police personnel.

I want to implore Government to pay keen attention to see to it that their conditions of service is improved.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am winding up, but it is considered a criminal offence for somebody to discover water in the desert and be quiet about it.

I want to give my view on the proposed Minister of Education [Applause].

I am a Northern by birth, by Legislation and by every other thing, but I have a home in Bo, Mr Speaker and the home I have in Bo is the family house of the proposed Minister of Education.
He is somebody who has the capability and the ability, somebody who got the prerequisite qualification, somebody who has been exposed to modern technology, somebody who knows the needs of the President and he has been appointed in such a sensitive 74 position.

Even if this Government passes in every other Ministry, but fails in education, this Government would be considered as a failed Government because the primary focus of this very Government is education.
So I want the Minister to note that he is carrying the life line of Sierra Leone and the Government as a whole [Applause].

I have always said the difference between us in Parliament and those fighting in the street is education.

If you deprive the kids from being educated, that is how you divert the destiny of a very prominent Doctor, Lawyer or a very prominent Magistrate to become a mere beggar in the street.

So the destinies of our kids are in your hands.


Make sure you perform your task judiciously without sentiment, make sure that education becomes a must in Sierra Leone.

I am saying this because these people that I have called have the acumen, they have the character and charisma, they have the aplomb and panache, they have the moral standing and they have the ecclesiastical establishment.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to add my voice to a senior colleague’s voice; Honourable Bashiru Silikie who said, most of us are very close to our people when we want the power, no sooner we have it, we close doors on them and no sooner we have the power, we think we are more superior to the people, but remember, one of my favourite artist; Lucky Dube [Undertone] so Mr Speaker, you do listen to his music?

THE SPEAKER: You really want to know the truth, he is my favourite artist.

HON.
HON.

ABDUL KARGBO: Lucky Dube says; ‘be careful with the people on your way up the ladder because these are the same people you meet on your way down the ladder’.

There were Ministers in some of your positions; since Sierra Leone gained independence we have had several Ministers.

Some now could not even look the people that they have been hiding from when they were in the Offices; they are bowing their heads just because of the way they treated people whiles they were in governance.
You have to be open up, you have to be teachable, you have to embrace the people that danced in the Streets and the people that sang songs for the party to come into power, you have to embrace every Sierra Leonean.

Education is not meant for one political party, do not politicize the Ministry of Education.

Every kid must be exposed to quality education and I trust you have the capability to do that.
75 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Ladies and Gentlemen in the galleries, I want to say all of you that have been appointed have the proclivity to be dismissed should you perform badly.

So do not think this appointment is a way for you not to perform or for you to be lackadaisical.

I want you to note that you are about to make history.
It was Reverend Dr Chigbundu that once said; ‘if you are in a society and you do not positively affect that society, you are a minus to the society, it would have been better you never existed in that society’.

We do not want to be minuses.

Even if no body questions you about your performance in those Ministries, God and posterity would one day question you as to what you did [Applause].
On that note Mr Speaker, I want to crave on the indulgences of the House and general Membership to expeditiously approve the appointees of His Excellency the President whilst we anticipate that they will help in the development of this country, I thank you Sir.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution to the debate.
I have two more recognitions; the Honourable Sam King Brima Deputy Minister of Agriculture and maybe the last but by no means the least; I want to recognise the young brilliant and indefatigable Keketoma Sandi [Applause].

I now recognise the Honourable Francis Amara Kaisamba.

HON.

FRANCIS A. KAISAMBA: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Report read by the Chief Whip and Acting Leader of Government Business to the Plenary, I am convinced that all the nominees are qualified.
Their curricula vitae are very good, their characters are good and so is their pedigree as said by the Report presented.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, all of the nominees will be serving in various capacities and I will encourage them to work alongside the programmes of this Government; the Manifesto promises to the people of this country to ensure that the required services are provided.
They should ensure that they refrain from what the Americans call personal benefit because once you do that, there will be consequences and many a time the consequences are dire.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, mindful of the time you have given us, I will begin to talk quickly on some of the nominees.

I want to talk on the Minister of Basic and 76 Secondary Education.
Like the Honourable from the Opposition was saying, this is the Flagship Project of this Government and before now I did say that this is an ambitious project because for any Government to give Free Education from Primary to Senior Secondary School is quite ambitious and is very challenging.
Many people thought that this Government was not going to be able to even begin to pay school fee subsidies, talk less of school materials, but definitely so far, Government has pledged chunk of its National Budget to education.

That shows the seriousness of this Government to education.

Government has been paying School Fees, Government has provided uniform to school going children, Government has provided school buses and Government has even started school feedings in some Districts in this country.
That in no way did not mean that there are no challenges, and Government did not tell anybody that this particular project is going to be very smooth.

Definitely we expect challenges, but we would ensure that we solve those challenges as we go along.
The Minister, Dr Sengeh is coming in where the previous Minister left from and with all that he has been doing; an innovative somebody, somebody who can be able to collate all the data for development, I am sure he can cope with the challenges in the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, and ensure that those challenges are surmounted so that the Flagship Project of this Government is fulfilled, so that what is most needed in this country; which is Human Capital Development is achieved.
So we ask that he delivers on all the Government promises.

I have no doubt in his character, I have no doubt in his professionalism and I have no doubt in what he can be able to do.

What he should be doing now is to ensure that he place all of those expertise in that Ministry so that we can succeed as a country and as a Government.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will quickly talk on the Ministry of Agriculture.
We have a brother from Kenema District; Mr Dennis Vandi who has been appointed as Minister to man that particular Ministry.

Of course by the Report, he has a Degree in Agriculture.

That notwithstanding, he has been a season Administrator in this country in almost all the Ministries, and of course he climbed the highest echelon of Civil Service; which is Secretary to President.
So I am sure he can combine his knowledge in 77 Agriculture and that of Administration to ensure that the Ministry of Agriculture is pushed forward because we have a lot of problems.

A lot of investment have been made in Agriculture, even by the previous Government; they used to bring tractors, so fort and so on; they give to people through Agriculture even though we did not realise much.
We came in, a lot of investment has been done, but there are still challenges and one of the key challenges we have is food self-sufficiency.

As a country, our staple food is rice, but we cannot feed ourselves; that is the problem.

All of this exchange rate variable problem that is on-going is because of the rice problem.

The amount alone which Government spend on importing rice to this country is so huge.
So for example, I know that a lot of investment has been made to revive Tormabum, Gbondapi and some other rice research areas.

So please Mr Vandi, once you come in, you have to ensure that those projects that can ensure we produce rice that we can feed ourselves and probably export some are implemented.

Please pay attention to those projects because they are very important; Government is spending lot of money to purchase rice.
People normally say rice per bag now is about Le 300,000, but it is white rice.

If for example they produce rice in China, Thailand and some other countries and they transport all of those commodities to Sierra Leone, naturally you expect those prices to shoot up.

But we have an opportunity as Sierra Leoneans to do Agriculture, to do rice farming so that we can be able to feed ourselves.
Therefore the Government should provide the road map for Agriculturists, provide the seedlings, provide the know-how and every other thing needed so that Agriculture becomes viable so that we stop the importation of rice to this country and become food self-sufficient.
If that is the only thing we can achieve, I am sure we would be okay and that ball is now in the court of Mr Dennis K Vandi; I know he is a very ambitious person; he will take the challenge and ensure that he turns the Ministry of Agriculture round and makes Agriculture a business in this country.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will quickly talk on Water Resources.
A lot of money has been equally pumped into the Ministry of Water Resources both by the Government and donor partners, but we still have challenges of water in this country, we still have kids with jerry cans going round trying to fetch water and some who may 78 be very unfortunate get knocked down on the way by vehicles or motor bikes whilst in search of water.

Mr Lansana, I am made to understand that you were at SALWACO before now.

So you have all it takes, you know the problems.


Please ensure that you use your knowledge, now you are the supervising Minister to supervise every other organ within the Ministry.

Use the resources of Government and donor partners to ensure that you fix the problem of water in this country.

It has become so perennial; year in year out we spend money on water and yet we have inadequate water.

As a Government, we want to see an end to that problem, and the ball is definitely in your court to do that.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to talk on the Ministry of Environment; that is a new Ministry.

There are a lot of environmental problems across the world and Sierra Leone is no exception.

We have had serious natural calamities and most of them happened as a result of our own activities; man made problems.

We Parliamentarians are ready to pass strong legislations; strong laws to ensure that we protect our environment.
There should be areas where people should not go to cut trees; there should be a Green Belt area and all of those innovations should come from a particular Ministry or Department and I know with your knowledge in environment, you have been the head of EPA all this while; you have what it takes to ensure that our environment in this country is protected.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I also want to talk on the nominated Ambassador to Turkey; Mr Mohamed Kaisamba and his Deputy.
I am inclined to know that Turkey is a new destination for Sierra Leone; I am not sure we have been there before.

I am sure you will be the Maiden Ambassador to that country and there are lots of huge opportunities there which you can bring back to this country, you can sell Sierra Leone, you can raise our image, you can create a whole lot of investment opportunities and bring back to this country.
As a brother, I know you have what it takes, you have the capability to ensure that you fly the flag of Sierra Leone very high.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, all the other nominees are very qualify, they have all what it takes to serve in the various capacities, but whilst you are serving, please 79 ensure you align whatever agendas you have in your various Departments and Ministries to the agenda of the Government so that we can succeed as a Government and as a country.

I thank you so much [Applause].


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution.

I now recognise the Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker for allowing me to catch your eyes.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will present my five minutes speech on the theme entitled: ‘When I was a Minister’.

If you are an Ambassador, remove ‘Minister’ and put ‘Ambassador’.
If you are a Commissioner, remove ‘Minister’ and put ‘Commissioner’ as the case may be and based on the warning of Lucky Dube as you rightly said, and as long as the law of Gravity exists and continues to be in force; whatever goes up will one day come down.

When you go up the ladder, one day you will come down the ladder, but having gone down the ladder and being up at one point in time, what will be your narrative?
The wish of His Excellency the President is to ensure a good narrative for all his nominees and we are here to ensure that for the time bracket, the New Direction must deliver because that is the way we should benefit, that is the only way that this country based on continuity will continue to go forward and not backwards.
On that note, I was very impressed by the speech made by the Education Minister, if approved, the last paragraph at the bottom on Page 2 ‘Dr Moinina’ and based on this statement, I just want better understanding of my theme that if you use that prefix ‘when I was a Minister’ and then you flow, you will see exactly what I am talking about.
With your permission Mr Speaker, it reads as follows: In his determination to change the narrative of the education problems, Dr David Sengeh said; I will add the prefix ‘when I was a Minister’ ‘‘I had a set of principles in my office, I do not received gifts, I have never received gifts in my office or at State House, I would make sure that those principles are clear; I did not give gifts, nor do I ask for gifts, so I did not expect gifts.
If you want to have a conversation with me, let us talk about education, let us talk about our children that is what I want.’’ When I read this statement, I am tempted to say two things: firstly, from today, I say you are my friend 80 because you will never ask for gifts and you will never receive gifts.

That is very excellent and those are the types of people we need.

Secondly, I will not be tempted to say that from today you are my friend, but you cannot be my best friend for now.
For you to be my best friend you should have added another clause which I will propose here; I would have make sure that those principles are clear on your principle as long as you know your principles are correct.

Firstly, you should have said I will never receive gifts [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Especially if they come from Greeks.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Exactly.

In addition, I will never take orders from above on matters of principles.
If you can add that one you will be my best friend [Laughter].

‘I never received gifts, nor do I take orders from above on matters of principles, I will not bend the rules’.

If you can tell this House that, then you will be my best friend but at least for now you are my friend [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, when I went through this Report, I said to myself Wow!
Now I know that our Former President, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma was very wise, and now we are harvesting [Koinadugu and Falaba] from his wisdom.

That was why he made up his mind that Koinadugu, Falaba must be separated; we must have two Districts.
Our brother Brigadier Kelly Konteh and our super sister Manti, I would have challenged you that had it not been for this separation, I am not saying it is not possible but the competition would have been keener than this one and besides the sharing of the National Cake would have taken a different formula.
If His Excellency President Maada Bio said ‘well I will give certain quota per District’, the number we have now would have been different, maybe we would have got at least three from the entire Koinadugu or Falaba but now we have many more.

Some are sited here; the works Minister was sited here.

He is from Koinadugu and then both of you are from Falaba.

That is the wisdom of the Former President, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, and our able President is now building on that wisdom.
I say thank you to His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio for building on that wisdom; now you have given us more.

When I read the narrative; paragraph 2, Page 4 of our able Retired Brigadier Kelly Konteh, I am 81 also tempted to add that prefix- ‘when I was a Minister’.

‘‘As citizens I told them they have every right to belong to a political party but that is where it stops.
I told them also that they are not to take sides in any political party.’’ I love that statement and I want to acknowledge, at least to thy self be true.

Apart from the police, the military have been neutral so far.

If we are to be true to ourselves, the Military personnel have been maintaining standards, they are humans, sometimes they can be influence a bit, but I can say the Military, S.O2 ‘Una don try, una clap for una sef’ [Applause].
The Military is now headed if approved by a former Military who has been second to none in that institution.

I believe what you are saying here will definitely be your narratives to the people of this country and to His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio when he comes down the ladder.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me talk about our Sister Manti who is the Chief Executive Leader of Dankawallie Development Association.

I have been to Dankawallie after I have been longing to see this Dankawallie.
I have been there only once in my life time and based on my experience, Dankawallie would have been the Garden of Eden in the days of Adam and Eve.

It has the best Cotton Tree that gives life to these people.

So Madam Manty Tarawallie, as head of Marie Stopes, maybe you never deemed it fit at that time but now you are a Minister representing the people of this country and more so your home town.

The Meeting I had in Dankawallie town, the hut where we hosted that meeting is as old as Adam and Eve.
I am pleading on their behalf, as Minister from that town, to use your first six months’ of your salary to redeem that hut.

I am pleading on their behalf, you are a daughter of the soil, and Koinadugu – Falaba people are very proud of you because now we have got more harvest, so let the harvest be replicated as well.

Please Madam Manty Tarawallie, we believe upon your approval today you will serve that purpose.
I know you have enough already, you are not here to get money, I know what it takes to be the head of Marie Stopes [Laughter].

I know you are not coming into politics to make money, you are coming to politics to help your people and you are a Minister if approved of the entire Sierra Leone, but at the same time, do not forget that you are from a District, you are 82 from a chiefdom, and you are from a town, to be specific Dankawallie town.
Let us start from there, the Cotton Tree is crying for first class decoration.

I intend to do my next independence anniversary in Dankawallie God willing in April next year.

I wish to see a very good beautification of that Cotton Tree.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, finally, let me move now to my Agriculture Minister if approved.
Mr Agriculture Minister, Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma hereby declare in your presence to your knowledge; you and your Deputy that I intend to change the unemployment narrative of this country in my own little way.

I have a corporative called Loma Farmers Corporative.

Loma Farmers Corporative will soon be registered and we intend to start Grass Cutter Husbandry in this land and the theme of that one is entitled ‘Grass Cutter a Money Making Machine’.
It is the easiest, cheapest way of becoming a Millionaire.

I am not scared about the market.

That is the reason why some people do trade marks in other to monopolise a particular dream and idea, but I am not scared because even if all of you join me, we cannot satisfy the market.

Ghana produces seventy thousand tons of Grass Cutter meat every year and their testimony is they cannot satisfy the market.

Loma Farmers Corporative, we intend to start that one.
Zero tolerance to unemployment by young graduates when we start that one.

Engineers, Doctors, Social Scientist, no matter your discipline, once you graduate, before you sit down for another five, six or ten years without a profitable job; you continue to languish in the street, there is job coming for all of you.

I will target University Graduates to make life meaningful for you.
I will not discourage you from getting your discipline, get your discipline, keep it; it is a security for you and come join us to bread Grass Cutters in this country.

We can never satisfy any Hotel here.

In fact let me tell you, a single Hotel will pay five years in advance to supply them, and then you will be in trouble not to breach your supply contract.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, on that note, I plead with my colleagues that we allow His Excellency’s nominees to be approved because he believes in these people and he believes that they are the people that can deliver to this nation.

Let us forget about creating new Ministries; that is the sole prerogative of the President.

If he thinks 83 it fit to create more Ministries, so be it!

That is the new Direction, all we need to do is to support and make sure the New Direction delivers.
So deliver in your various Ministries, and God bless you.

I will be going to Dankawallie.

Madam Manty Tarawalllie congratulations in advance [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his contribution to the debate.

I will now take my very last speaker before we winding up the debate.

In doing so, I wish to extend my sincere apologies to the smaller parties in Parliament not because you are not important, of course you are extremely important but time is against us.
So C for C, NGC and the Independents, I extend my sincere apologies for not recognising you on this occasion.

I promise you when we start the debate on the Budget you would be foremost on my mind.

We cannot end this debate without recognising at least a lady Member of Parliament.

Suspension of S.O5 [2] HON.

MOHAMED S. BILLOH: Mr Speaker, I want to comment Sir.

Mr Speaker, we are having nominees from Falaba for the very first time and I cannot have the Floor to comment on them.
I am pleading Mr Speaker to have the Floor.

Honourable Lahai Marah should not have been given the Floor before me.

Mr Speaker, I should have been given that preference and you know how many times I have been to your office advocating for my people in Falaba District to have appointees.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member, he has already made his contribution [Laughter].

HON.
HON.

HAFIJU M. KANJA: Mr Speaker, importantly again, for the very first time we have two Retired Colonels and one retired Brigadier.

For me as Defence Chairman, I think I need to add my voice to this debate Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Add one more sentence.

HON.

HAFIJU M. KANJA: I am pleading with the House through you Sir.

HON.

MOHAMED S. BILLOH: Mr Speaker I am also pleading.

84 THE SPEAKER: I am very pleased with both of you.
I am sure the nominees have already heard you loud and clear, they know it is your wish to take the Floor and to make your own commendation on their appointments but alas time will not allow.

With that, I recognise Honourable Neneh Lebbie.

HON.

NENEH LEBBIE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am happy to be part of the Membership this afternoon to approve these eminent personalities we have before us.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in general let me talk to all the nominees.

I must say that there has been key word which I want all of you to take note of and that is ‘changing the narrative’.

That word has been used over and again by our colleagues, meaning you people have been chosen to serve this country because we want to change the narrative of issues in this country.
I must start by appreciating His Excellency the President Julius Maada Bio for the choice he has made, but let me quickly go through very few of these nominees.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to start with the Minister of Agriculture.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Agriculture is very key.

We are talking about bread and butter and it comes from Agriculture.
If we can recall, for those of us who are old enough to tell stories about the past, Mr Speaker, you will agree with me that this country did so well in those days in the field of Agriculture.

We need to ask ourselves where have we gone wrong?

What is responsible for us deteriorating as a country in terms of Agriculture?

Why do we rely on other countries to feed us?

Are we not endowed with very fertile soil in this country to practice Agriculture?
With these questions in mind Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will want the Minister of Agriculture to know that we have so much passion for his Ministry.

The narrative we want him to change in this Ministry is really key.

We want to see us planting what we eat in this country and I am sure we have the capacity.

We have the capacity as a country, we have people who have the capacity to do farming.
We have had a lot of programmes; Green Revolution and others but instead of seeing us progressing in Agriculture, we have over the years seen ourselves deteriorating with time.

Mr Minister to be in the Ministry of Agriculture, you have a herculean task that is difficult to go 85 through because of the mind set of people.

There are people who think that it is only Government who should feed them, but how can that be done is another question that is yet to be answered.
You are going to be faced with a lot of challenges.

Tormabum is a very vast Boliland that needs to be cultivated for the benefit of this country.

Please pay attention as you come in.

What is wrong with Rokuprr?

We used to have seed multiplication programmes, but now it has collapsed.

Some of the farmers whom we meet sometimes tell us that the seeds which Government provides for them are either adulterated or come in very late.
We are all aware of climate change; we now see that the rainy season is moving closely in to the dry season.

I do not know how we can adjust the geography of this country, but you really need to step up the activities of the Agriculture Ministry if ‘changing the narrative’ that has been used over and again is to be actualised.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will quickly talk about my sister Manty Tarawalllie.

I got to know Manty few days back, but I was very pleased to come across you.
Manty, you are a Sierra Leonean, much has been said about you being a Korankoh from Falaba and you must be proud of where you come from, you must be proud of your origin, but one thing I want you to have in mine is the position that have been given to you is for Sierra Leoneans; you are coming to serve Sierra Leoneans and not Korankoh people [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the idea of tribalism is seriously disturbing us in Sierra Leone.
For some of us who went to Rwanda on a study trip, we learnt that when you ask anybody from Rwanda about the tribe he or she belongs to, that person will tell you ‘I am a Rwandese’, he will not tell you that he is a Hutu or a Tutsi.

I want us to be proud as Sierra Leoneans, you are coming to serve Sierra Leone so do it diligently please.

I am proud of you and I am sure women of this country are going to be proud of you.

You have done so much in the field of Marie Stopes.
I am sure the experiences you have gathered from Marie Stopes will be extended to your Ministry.

I know we are moving very seriously for us to have more women, but as Members of Parliament, we say thanks to His Excellency the President for thinking of you, we are proud of you and we know you will keep up to our expectations.

86 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me quickly move to my nephew; the Minister of Basic and Senior Education.
Mr Minister to be, we know that this Ministry is a Ministry that is taking a huge chunk of this country’s finances.

His Excellency the President has spent so much money and he is spending so much money.

Even in this Budget, we know that almost 22% of the Budget is going to be allocated to you.

Meaning, that is the flagship and all eyes are on you.
You are young, you have a very attractive resume which we have gone through, but I want you to know that the challenges in the educational sector are enormous.

Few weeks ago, we went on oversight and we were able to cover the Eastern Districts of Kailahun and Kenema and also the South which was funded by United Nations for Children’s Fund [UNICEF].

We are faced with a lot of challenges and I am sure the Committee will be more than willing to proffer you with the outcome of some of these meetings.
The Challenges range from subsidies not paid early, schools not being approved etc.

the challenges are enormous like I said.

Mr Minister to be, you told us that you already have a data of 2,660,628 children in school, but let me assure you that when we come to the reality, perhaps the number would either increase because the number keeps fluctuating, but let me tell you that these challenges you are faced with have to do with the inspectorate.
You do not have people to inspect teachers, you do not have inspector of schools, you do not have supervisors of schools, and how can your work go on smoothly?

THE SPEAKER: And with that Madam?

HON.


NENEH LEBBIE: Mr Speaker, having said that to my Minister of Education, I want Mr KemohKai to know that some of us were in Parliament when he was here as Clerk and to know that his reception has been very good to us at that time, and we know that based on his experience, he is going to perform well in his office.

On that note, Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to thank you and congratulate the nominees in advance.

I thank you very much [Applause].


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Lady for her contribution.

Before we wind up the debate starting with the Acting Leader of the Opposition and ending with the Acting Leader of Government Business, I wish to take this opportunity to finally recognise Dr 87 Prince Harding, Chairman and Leader of the glorious party [Applause].

I now recognise the Acting Leader of the Opposition who combines that with Chief Whip of the Opposition.

HON.
HON.

HASSAN SESAY: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we have an array of people, unfortunately let me start with what you might not want to hear; that we have fourteen nominees in front of us today but only one lady.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am poor at Mathematics but you help me do the Maths as to what percentage the women represent in that number.
I think for all the good things that we have been saying, that is the downside that nobody wants to mention, t is like the big elephant in the room that nobody wants to pay attention to.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now that we have this, I just want to draw the attention of the Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio to the fact that whenever appointments of such nature are made, let him note that we are very gender sensitive today in our society.
I have been an advocate for women and will continue to do that as long as I can.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, having said that we have a set of people here that we all know we have interacted with them in several fronts.

I will start with the lady first and I am doing this in the spirit of the Bo declaration.
That is why we want to do things so that people understand that if we collaborate and cooperate, this country is our country and we have only one country; we must all work together to make it a better place.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, something Manty might not even know is that her Grandmother was my step mother because her mother was a daughter of my step mother who was married to my father back in the days; Ya-Dora of cause.

So when I called the name, she knows what I am talking about.
So more or less, I have been watching her from a distance, I know her and so, I have no reason not to support an appointment of this nature and besides, she has been on the corridors of Parliament advocating for women’s issues for the longest time since I have been in this Parliament five years ago; this is my seventh year, so I know Manty.

That is why I think it is not mistake that the President thought it fit to nominate her as a Minister and we would 88 approve you.
And now she has a woman to work with in that Ministry as Chairperson; so definitely is a good combination and I believed and I have no doubt in her capacity to perform in that area because it is a comfort zone for her.

She has been there, and like the American would say; ‘been there, done that’.

So we cannot expect anything less than the best from you Manty, Good Luck.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, to have somebody who spent his life in the Civil Service for the better part of thirty years plus now becoming a Minister, it means this is somebody who knows the inside and out of the Civil Service.

With no disrespect for the Civil Services; graduating from a Civil Servant to a Minister means that no Civil Servant will be able to corner him in his Ministry.

And I am talking about somebody who has been a friend.
That is why I am saying Sierra Leone is such a small country; we are all intertwined in one way or the other, let us live for Sierra Leone and not live for somebody else.

The parties are smaller than us, the country is bigger than the parties; let us look at it from that perspective and Sierra Leone will be a better place [Applause].
And there is only one thing Mr Speaker, you spoke about Lucky Dube, I will speak about Joseph Hill who said there are three sides to a story; your side, my side and the truth.

And the truth can never be compromised; it’s always the truth as long as it remains to be there.

Mr Speaker, Mr Denise K Vandy who worked to the end of his days in the Civil Services worked with a brother of mine; a friend of blessed Memory; Hindolo Try at the Ministry of Labour.
He was Permanent Secretary that wanted to be transferred and the man insisted that he must not go because he was like a brother to him and through that, we interacted a lot with Dennis Vandy, I came to know him much more.

He is indeed a fine gentleman, I have nothing more to expect from him but, that he can deliver and he has the ability to.

If he does not deliver, is because he does not want to but I am sure he is a man who sets his goals high and always tries to achieve the best in whatever he does.
Having said that about Mr Vandy, I know that you have to do well, but let me draw your attention to the fact that we are spending over $200mln importing Rice.

We 89 have the capacity to produce rice and feed ourselves but we have not done it for whatever reason.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now let me talk about the bureaucratic bottlenecks that actually impede performance at the Agricultural Ministry.
When they put out contract for Fertilizer supply, the fertilizer comes, the bureaucrats; I will call those people the bureaucrats, who are there; and it is not the top level bureaucrat, the mid- level bureaucrat are the danger to the Public Service.

Why am I saying that Mr Speaker?


When the process is on to get the Fertilizers on, it is because of their ups and downs, here and there, pull and put that the delay in the supply of such Fertilizers takes place and they do not get to the target benefiters on time and those are time bound commodities, when they do not get to the Farmers on time, then definitely they will impede production.

If we try to improve on those aspects, probably Mr Speaker, we will be able to produce much more rice.
If we can curtail the import of rice by half, then we will be saving over $100mln which will go back to other services within the country.

I am sure Dennis will listen and take that to his Ministry and see how best he can actualize that because is a man who loves challenges; I know him for that.
Having said that, I will not say more, we have other areas; even the importation of poultry product, if we can cut that by half, we would save our Foreign Currency and then the pressure will be eased on our Currency thereby stabilizing the Foreign Exchange.

We are still going to invite the Governor of the Bank to this power House; I said it before and we are going to call him to account to us why our currency is where it is.

We said it and we are going to do it; let him be ready to face this House.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now that we have such people, I expect that much more will be delivered from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me now talk about the Ambassador to Turkey; Mr Mohamed Kaisamba.

Turkey is a relatively new terrain; we know the potential of a country like Turkey, we know how strong their Textile Industry is, we know how strong they are in other areas in terms of oriental product etc., and it is an area that we have not exhausted.
I want to see the newly appointed Ambassador to go there and exploit 90 the areas that we need so that the Trade link between Turkey and Sierra Leone will be strengthened.

Let us benefit from that and make sure that people start travelling from here to Turkey through direct flight so that they can bring wears, because most of the people who go to China for Trade see China to be too far and expensive to travel.
Let us try to limit the amount of money and time the people spend so that they will be more inclined into doing business with people in that area.

And is not only about Turkey; you have places like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, all of those areas are growing Economies; they need to be exploited and I think it is now upon the Ambassador to go and make sure that he taps into those resources for the betterment of Sierra Leone.
They have Gas and Oil, they have Investors that want to come here but they need to be lured to come.

But if they are to be lured to come here, we must do our homework here.

That is where I will talk again about the Governor of the Bank; we want him here, let him tell us so that we will have reasons to explain to Invertors why they must come and why they should not be scared away.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I met Mr Massaquio in New York when he was serving at the United Nation Mission; a fine gentleman, one with strength of character and discipline.

Of course we know when we talk about discipline in this country; it starts with the Military and ends with the Military.

So I have no doubt about people coming from the Military to serve in our country; we know that they must deliver because they are disciplined and they are people who have character [Applause].
Like my colleague from Koinadugu said; Soja man, S.O 2 ‘den don try, leh dem continue for try’.

[Undertone] ‘ar nor dea o, are travel’ [Laughter].

Mr Speaker Honourable Members, having said that, I will now rope in Retired Brigadier Kellie Conteh.

I knew him since in 90’s when he was in the Military; He is known for discipline, he is known for being somebody with principles and somebody who cannot bend.
But like my colleague said, we hope and hope against hope that Orders from above will not interfere with your principled position; that is what we hope for.

As long as that is not done, you are fine gentleman and we know you will deliver.

91 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now let me come to one very sensitive area; Dr Jarward.

The Honourable from Bo was just talking about the change in Climate; Climate Change is real.
We have all been hearing about El Nino, we have all been hearing about what has been happening in other areas; when the Amazon forests are devastated, we feel the effects here.

People might think they are too far away, no!

But Environmental degradation is one thing that is affecting us very greatly; we know how much people are devastating our forest by Timber logging.

I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago here in the Well; talking about the creation of a Timber Commission to slot in monies from Timber.
Why do we need that Mr Environment Minister?

Running a Commission is different from running a Ministry; it is more expensive, so we expect that now that you are going to the Ministry, you will make sure that all of these areas are purely looked into so that whatever we do, we ensure that we maintain the sanity of our society by preventing excessive logging of our Timber.
The roads have been destroy; go to Falaba, go to Koinadugu District, go to other parts of the country and see how people are “bastardising” our forests, sorry for the language.

We need to control that!

Yes, we need the money, but we want to sustain our environment also because it is more valuable.

So I expect Dr Jarward being a professional, will come in and make sure that robust measures are put in place to ensure that all of these things are controlled.
People tell you, if we fell one tree, we will grow another; by the time you grow the trees in five years the devastation that will take place might not be measureable.

So let us control that area; what has been done might not be undone but let us not continue to do it.

Mr Speaker Honourable Members, now to the young Minister of Education.

I always want to see young people grow; let us give opportunity to the young to grow.
But you have made statements which are still ideals, and I always says, when you have ideals you must try to reconcile your ideals and the reality.

So, you have said all the beautiful things.

I want to see them actualized because they will be for the betterment of our country, our people and the young Leader that we want to see tomorrow.

We hope that when you come there it will be for Sierra Leone.

Now let us understand; I am not 92 ‘Paopa’ and I will not be.

I am APC and Tolongbo period!


But I am Sierra Leonean over and above all of that.

So, we expect to see people go to their respective Ministries and Departments and do what we expect them to do so that when we come back to power we will inherit something that we can work on [undertone] that we know, but we will give you all the support that you require to make sure that you achieve your desired objective.
Having said that, to all the nominees, including those that I cannot mention, I wish you well; I hope you do the best for this country and for posterity.

I thank you all [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Acting Leader of the Opposition and the Acting Leader of Government Business.

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Thank you Mr Speaker.

I know even the nominees that are here today are tired.
Let me just summaries Mr Speaker, but let me start from where my colleague ended; saying he is Tolongbo, I agree perfectly but let me talk to the people in the galleries; what has happened here this morning to this afternoon is a living testimony that nobody in this country should hold knife or stick to fight for a Politician because all of us in this Well regardless of our political parties we are brothers and sisters [Applause].
You see when the debate started the synergy that was between Honourable Hindolo Moiwo Gevao and Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma; when one moved the other one second the motion.

When we are in this Well, we eat together, we laugh together but you the supporters will go outside, start taking knife for your own brother and when we are ready to settle our scores you will not be there.

So these are living testimonies this afternoon Mr Speaker, that we should stop violence in politics in this country [Applause].
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, all has been said about our nominees.

The nominees here before us this afternoon, I would like to call all of you as game changers.

Please do not be unfair to us and to the other people who might want to be Ministers tomorrow.

Why did I say that?

You are going to serve the ‘Paopa’ Government; not the SLPP Government.

After ten years, that is the time the SLPP Government will take the reign of power in this country [Applause].
So if you do not perform, the possibility of 93 the SLPP Government coming to power will be very slim.

Therefore, we are giving you your ten years, please go and change the narrative of this country, please make sure that there is no run-off in the year 2023; we have President Retired Brigadier Maada Bio in Parliament one go.

How will you do that?

Is for you to perform and make sure that we get every single vote in Koinadugu and Falaba [Applause].
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, like Honourable Bashiru Silikie said, excuses do not have place in Retired Brigadier Maada Bio’s Administration.

Let me allay the fears of my colleague; today we know that the Military is a discipline force in this country.

When you look at this list, apart from the retired Military in other offices, this list alone has about three Retired Brigadier and Colonels.
Meaning if you want to be discipline as a country you have to rely on the Military to provide you the discipline; that is exactly what Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio is doing.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I cannot speak to the entire nominees one after the other because I am sure they are also tried but I can assure this House that those set of nominees in front of us here today will deliver the goodies that will allow us the Paopa Government to stay in power for another ten years before the SLPP Government comes.
Somebody talked about ‘Orders from above’; the reason why some people are appointed Ministers today like Honourable Lahai Marah was saying is because of their discipline.

I know of two gentlemen; one is Brigadier Kellie Conteh, is a non-nonsense gentleman.

This is a man that will look in the face of his Boss and says ‘master you are my master but that is wrong’, let us go this way.
That was the reason why he was dismissed at ONS because he stands for the truth and he always tells his Boss ‘no Sir that is wrong, before I do the wrong thing and posterity judge me tomorrow, take your job’.

That is the type of man we are going to have as a Minister of Defence in this country and we have a President that wants somebody that we tell you ‘No Sir, let us go this way’ and when he sees that something is right, he will always tow that line.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, there is no way the Minister of Education is going to take ‘Others from Above’; I can assure you that Honourable Daniel Brima Koroma.

He is a fine gentleman that you will ever like when you come across him.

I was with him in 94 Paris few days ago; this is a young man that will tell President Bio, ‘President Bio, you have given me a job, allow me to do it’.

He does not need to go for rehearsal.


Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, on that note, let me thank all of us, particularly the Advisers to the President including Mr Speaker.

I do not know where those beautiful and hardworking ladies and gentlemen were in this country; it is now we are identifying their potential.

Whosoever helped the President to identify those potential, you have done us good in this country.

These are people that we can rely on.


We are going to have galaxy of new innovators in this country.

In the next two minute, we would have those that are coming to change the narrative of this country.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, last year I was the Chairman of Appropriation Committee in one of the Committees and I happened to deal with the Military.
Mr Speaker, you can remember when I was reading my Report; I did not read any Report that had to do with the Military, but Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, like the previous Speaker said; if we utilize the potential of the Military, the money we spend to import rice to supply to the Military will be enough to feed the Military, the police and the Correctional Centre.

We used to have a very hardworking mechanic wing of the Military that used to do Agriculture.
I have no doubt that collaboratively the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Agriculture will use their expertise to ensure that we use the Military to start doing farming that will sustain not only them, but also the police and the Correlational Centre.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, it is good to be loyal and it is good to work hard; anything you work hard for, you will reap the reward.

When we were campaigning Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we went to Kabala.
The late General Tarawalie of blessed memory was not well, but he made sure he never went to sleep if Brigadier Maada Bio did not go to bed.

We left Kabala Town at 4:00p.m and we arrived in his village around 7a.m.

When I turned round, whom did I see?

General Tarawalie.

I said General, I thought you not well and he said to me; ‘look Dickson, I am not well but I want to make sure that my son, the Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio becomes President in this country before I die’.
So today, because of that hard work, his 95 daughter is reaping the benefit.

Madam Minister to be, I want to make sure you live those legacies with your children; let us make sure that we are working for the future of our kids in this country.

Like President Bio once said; ‘if you can work form team to State House, any of our kids in the ‘fakai’ can work from there to State House at any time’.

But you are going to be the drivers of those vehicles please do not disappoint us.
Today, we have the right as Members of Parliament to reject all of you!

The reason why I am saying this is because tomorrow, by the time you walk out of this corridor you will delete all of our numbers in your phones; you do not pick our calls.

Almost all of us in this Well are involved in Agriculture.

A Member of Parliament will go to the Ministry of Agriculture; he wants to see the Minister, the Minister will say tell him I am busy, I am in a meeting.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, to all the appointed Ministers and Chairmen, make this House proud because when the President appointed you, in the letter, it is written there ‘with the approval of Parliament’ meaning; he alone will not appoint you as Minister today and you go to your office today.

That is why he sent you back to Parliament because it is us that have that responsibility.

If you fail this country, the first people that will be castigated are the Members of Parliament.
Somebody will tell us ‘you did not scrutinize them properly’, and over 90% of Members of Parliament lost their seats in the last Elections because Ministers did not perform.

At the end of the day our voters will not know that it is not our responsibility to take Court Barry to their villages and it is not our responsibility to construct bridges.

For all the care; it is their Members of Parliament responsibilities.
Please come to the aid of the Members of Parliament, let us make sure that we deliver on our Manifesto, and let us make sure that after the ten years of the ‘Paopa’ Government, the SLPP will now come to power [Applause].

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, without much I do, I want to appeal to this House; the type of synergy we have seen between us today let it continue and let us start now by speedily approving our presidential nominees.

I thank you very much [Applause].


On that note Mr Speaker, be it resolved that the Eight Report of the Second Session of 96 the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service be adopted by this House and that the recommendations contained therein be approved as amended.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] [Motion of the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service has been approved] THE SPEAKER: Remain in your seats!

We are not done yet.


Honourable Members, it is now my pleasant duty to lend my own voice to that of all the Members of Parliament who have taken the Floor on this very important series of nominations that have been approved.

I first of all want to thank the visitors in the galleries; you have been very good, you have been very patient and we thank you for your attendance today and for your patience.

We know how passionate all of you are to see the presidential nominees approved by the House.
Thankfully, they all have been approved except one who is out of the country.

To the nominees, I have a few words of advice and caution to say.

By your nomination, the President has reposed his personal trust and confidence in all of you, and that trust and confidence has just been replicated here by the entire House of Parliament.

We know and we appreciate the fact that all of you are highly qualified in your respective fields and very eminently suitable for appointment to your various offices.
However, let me make two points that I want to leave with you; under our Constitution, no Minister, no Public Officer is immune from Parliamentary scrutiny [Applause].
No Public Officer is appointed for life, no Public Officer holds his or her Office permanently and this Parliament in discharging its responsibilities under the Constitution would ensure that we carry out in addition to passing the Laws of this country, the Oversight responsibilities vested in this Parliament by the Constitution of Sierra Leone, and in that regard, let me say no Public Officer is immune or enjoys any immunity from Parliamentary scrutiny.
Therefore, I implore you when you receive oversight committees or the Members thereof, to please open your doors to them; they are there as friends, not as foes.

Lastly, it is of course the prerogative power of the President to appoint and dismiss Public Officers.

Parliament does not have that power but let me tell you what 97 Parliament can do if you fail to perform in your offices.
This Parliament has the power to pass a vote of no confidence over anybody who holds a Public Office and we will not hesitate to do that once we are convinced, once the evidence shows that you are not a performing Public Officer [Applause].

That said, I take this opportunity on behalf of the entire House to convey our congratulations and felicitations to all the nominees for going through the process of approval by the House.

We wish you well and God bless you all [Applause].


You may now take leave of us.

Visitors please Parliament has not yet adjourned so move as expeditiously as you can because we want to continue with our business.

V. PRIVATE MEMBER MOTION Proposer: Hon.

Bashiru Silikie Seconder: Hon.

Lahai Marah HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, be it resolved that in the interest of public safety and security and addressing the hazards and the degradation of the environmental road safety and preservation and the reduction of high cost of road maintenance, I move that all life scale industries, mining companies with access to sea port or jetties through which they carried out exports or imports of commodities and minerals that they do so through the ports by minimum of 60% of their monthly fuel consumption, only seas transportation companies who have had experience supplying petroleum products that see or leave the ports of Sierra Leone in the last five years will be permitted to carry out these services in Sierra Leone.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we all know that the duration of most of these roads constructed by Government is not less than fifteen years.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we are currently facing with a situation where roads are being constructed by Government with a very huge sum of money and some of these roads or most of these roads or all of these do not last for more than five years of it guarantee period.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the mining sector is pivotal in destroying most of these roads and leaving the liabilities to Government, Government at the end of the day is bound by law or by conscience to make repairs or rehabilitate the 98 roads.

The worse of it all is for some of us or some of these mining companies that do used the feeder roads.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, there is an azul road policy in this country where vehicles are registered per tonnage, we are face with a situation Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, and some of the road cannot withstand some of these mining companies vehicles tonnage.

We now have a situation where we have to repair or rehabilitate most or all of these roads that has been constructed in less than eight years.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the past Government spent huge junk of the national Budget on road infrastructure and it is heartrending to notice that currently all of these roads do not stand the test of time, for instance the road between Masiaka and Makeni, the road between Masiaka and Bo, the road between Gbarah Junction and Kambia.

Most or all of these roads are not good for vehicular traffic and most of these roads the passengers and Government are finding it difficult to be used.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we now have a situation where mining companies that have access to sea port are plying some of their goods and services through seas, but they are doing it in a minimal number.

The motion I am moving here Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, is for those that have access to sea port to serve Government and the people to use some of these jetties as their entrance points.
We already have a situation where some of these mining companies leave a very bad effect behind and after working for such a long period of time, at the end of the day mining company’s fold-up without refurbishing the lands where they were doing mining.

My motion here this afternoon Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, is to ask this Parliament to approve that all mining companies especially those that have access to the sea ports; they are already doing it but they are doing it in very small quantum.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am asking these mining companies with this access through this Parliament to save us as a Government, to save us a country so that they move their goods and services through the port, they are doing it now but they are doing it in a very small number.

So I am moving that 60% of their resources to be used in other to rehabilitate the roads from Masiaka to Bo, from Masiaka to Makeni and we will concentrate some of the monies into doing other developments.
We should not be spending all of these monies in doing rehabilitation, in doing refurbishing.

For instance 99 Government has spent a huge sum of money in doing Moyamba Junction, Moyamba road.

We are now going to face with a situation where these roads will not stand the test of time.

HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Mr Speaker, with your kind permission Sir.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, with all due respect to my friend, I think the motion is extremely important and this is something this House should look at very seriously, but in the circumstances Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I wish to draw your attention to the fact that I do not think that we have a quorum presently and I wish to draw your attention pursuant to Order 7 roll 2 of the standing orders.

THE SPEAKER: Which Order Deputy?

HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Order 7, roll 2 Mr Speaker.


THE SPEAKER: Clerk, will you please confirm whether or not we have a quorum?

I am assured that we have a quorum.

HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Okay, we can proceed.

THE SPEAKER: And please if you can just round up because you have already made the point.

HON.

BASHIRU SILIKIE: Yes, thank you very much Honourable Deputy Speaker for endorsing the importance of this motion and Mr Speaker, in summary I now move that this Parliament ratified the motion.
I thank you very much.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you.

Mover of the motion please make the motion available to the Clerks in writing because I observed that you have amended it quite considerably.

Any seconder?

HON.

LAHAI MARAH: Mr Speaker, I second this important motion as stated by my colleague Honourable Bashiru Silikie [Applause].

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed To] THE SPEAKER: Any announcement?

100 HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Speaker, I want to stand on S.O 23.

THE SPEAKER: S.O what?

HON.


HASSAN A. SESAY: S.O 23 Sir.

THE SPEAKER: By all means.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we can all recall that there was a mass process of sacking that took place at the Statistics office affecting over two hundred and forty [240] people.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I have with me here documents speaking to the fact that even the Office of the Ombudsman has already submitted that those people affected at the centre Statistics Office if relieved of their duties deserve to be paid their benefits.
Mr Speaker, as I speak all of the people affected are still unpaid, they are not asking to be reinstated, but they are asking to be paid their benefit because they have accepted that they have been removed from their jobs but Mr Speaker, it is inhuman for people to be relieved off their duties and not paid their monies which are due them.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, they have served this country, if we look at the letters of dismissal that all of them brought which I have seen, one of the reasons for removal was that they do not go through the due process but they were recognised, they were paid for years at the Centre Statistics Office.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I just want to draw the attention of this House to the predicament of those people so that they can be paid their benefits because they deserve it, and Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, if you care to know some of them have already lost their life because they cannot wait.

THE SPEAKER: And with that you move?

HON.


HASSAN A. SESAY: Therefore, Mr Speaker, I want to move that the Centre Statistics Office be call to attention to make sure that they address this issue particular so because the Ombudsman have already ruled in favour of them that they deserved to get their benefits that are due them because they have served this country.

THE SPEAKER: Any seconder to that motion?

101 HON.

MARK M. KALOKOH: Mr Speaker, I so second the motion.

[Question Proposed] HON.


HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Speaker, I know the question has been put but I want us to look at this matter critically Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, I am a Sierra Leonean and do feel what any other person feels when that person is of the view that injustices has been melted against him but Mr Speaker, I am sure we have Committee of Labour and due process to follow in the country.

Mr Speaker, this institution is highly respected by the entire nation.
Mr Speaker, by passing this motion we would be making it imperative whether right or wrong on that institution to pay those people whether their dismissal was lawful or unlawful.

Mr Speaker, as we sit here we cannot for sure state that their dismissal was lawful or unlawful.

Mr Speaker, assuming without considering all those [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: I never heard the word dismissal been used, what the mover of the motion use is that those former employees of Statistics Sierra Leone whose services has been terminated should have their end of service benefit paid to them, that is what he said.

HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Speaker, that is all the reason why I am making this submission.
Mr Speaker, as we sit here we have not seen any letter as a House for us to be able to know the content of what is in their letter whether it is a dismissal or termination [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Member, do you have one?

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Yes Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: Would you like to read that letter of termination for the benefit of the Honourable Member?

HON.

MOHAMED B. SHAW: Mr Speaker, also if employee’s contract is being terminated [Interruption].
THE SPEAKER: I have not giving you the Floor.

Please wait, you will have your time.

102 HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Mr Speaker, with your leave I read “We write to notify you that termination of the employment of 244 staff of Statistic Sierra Leone in May, 2019.
The Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Tower Hill, Freetown, we write to notify you that we have been inquired into the termination of the 244 staff by Statistics Sierra Leone herein after referred to as Stats SL, pursuant to our mandate under Section 146 [2] of the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone Act Number 6 and Section 7[1a] roman [ii] of the Ombudsman Act Number 2 of 1997 respectively.
We prepare the termination report on justification proffered by Stats Sierra Leone for the terminations together with recommendations for the legal action in a form a letter in August, 2019 as provided for in Section 7[1b] of the Ombudsman Act 1997.
In recognition of the seriousness and sensitive nature of this matter as well as the implication of our findings and recommendations we decided to first discuss the content of the termination letter which the Statistics General Professor Osman Sankoh and the Chairman of Statistics Council Moses S.J Williams at meeting in our office in August, 2019.
Thereafter, we served the termination letter on the Statistician General Professor Osman Sankoh who is the Principle Officer at the Stats Sierra Leone on the same day; 15 August, 2019 as required on Section 7[1b2] and 13[2] of the Ombudsman Act 1997...’’ THE SPEAKER: Can you paraphrase it now because I see a second page that is very full and the third.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: Okay I will make it short.


THE SPEAKER: In short, my understanding is that a certain group of former employees of Statistics Sierra Leone had their services terminated and they are yet to be paid their end of services benefit.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: That is it Mr Speaker.


THE SPEAKER: If that is the case then what this House is simply saying if I understand the Honourable Member is to urge Statistics Sierra Leone to take the necessary steps to have those former employees paid their end of services benefit.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: That is all we are asking for Mr Speaker.

103 HON.

HINDOLO M. GEVAO: Mr Speaker, the letter he just read is a letter from the Ombudsman, an administrative institution with quasar judicial powers.
Mr Speaker, what I was saying we are Members of Parliament if somebody comes to say they have terminated my services the reasons for the termination are all going to quoted or categorised, but in this case we have not seen a letter of termination and we do not know the rationale for the termination… - [Interruption].

HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Mr Speaker, I am certainly not against what he is saying, what I am against Mr Speaker, is the procedure.
By right, they should be coming here on petition, they should be coming here where they all sign their petition and they present that petition through him then we have the capacity to argue that out.

THE SPEAKER: There is a commission on petition.

HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Yes.

So you do not come by Order 23 because this one is contentious already so come by petition certainly I will support you if the grounds are so worth it Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: I would advise you take heed of that.

HON.
HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: I agreed with my colleague Mr Speaker, but what he is saying [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: It should not come under S.O 23.

HON.

HASSAN A. SESAY: But what I was referring to is because there has already an issue with the Ombudsman that has make a ruling and that is the situation [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: No!

That one is noted, look at S.O 23 you cannot raise a controversial matter that is what the Honourable Member is saying.

HON.
HON.

SEGEPOH S. THOMAS: Come under S.O 17 by petition.

THE SPEAKER: Come under petition that is what he is advising and I think is a good advice.

Any other?

104 HON.

MAADA H. KANJA: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I stand on S.O 23.
About two weeks ago in this Well I stood on S.O 23 with a complaint letter written by more than one thousand teachers in two of our constituencies in Kenema District; constituency 017 and 018 respectively that there is an insurance company called International Insurance Company who went to those two constituencies took pin codes and names of teachers five years back and started deducting Le50,000 from each teacher every month and up till now it is happening so the teachers wrote a letter of complaint to the Chairman Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Basic Education and to the Chairman Transparency and Accountability Committee about a month ago and nothing has been done up till now.
We went to Accountant General’s Office, they admitted that they have been deducting monies from the teachers and they are paying it to the Insurance Company.

They even went through their system and I saw so many names [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: I think quite frankly I do not want to stop you midstream, but I think that is a suitable subject to come to us by way of petition rather than S.O 23.

HON.

MAADA H. KANJA: Okay Sir.


On S.O 75 again it just a reminder Sir, I brought a complaint to this Well on premature publication.

THE SPEAKER: Yes that matter was referred to Committee on Privileges.

HON.

MAADA H. KANJA: They have done nothing about that Sir.

THE SPEAKER: Well, I think the Deputy Speaker has been out of the jurisdiction for some time, now that he is back I am sure he will look into that matter.

HON.

MAADA H. KANJA: Thank you Sir.


THE SPEAKER: He is the Chairman of the Privileges Committee.

HON.

PAUL S. SAM: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, of course I stand on S.O 23.
Mr Speaker, I want to believe we have serenity in this country, but travelling from Freetown to the Provence’s there are so many increased of checkpoints at the moment and when you look at the narrow roads leading to some of these areas, and the police 105 officers normally planted some very heavy object on the road that actually lead to accident.
When you look at the Freetown-Kono highway at mile 38, of course that was a substantive checkpoint, you look at very close to Makeni there is also another checkpoint, very close to Matotoka there is another checkpoint, close to Mashimgbi there is another checkpoint, close to Kono is also another checkpoint and they even extort money from the vehicle drivers and it is a very serious matter which drivers has arisen up to Members of Parliament and also sometimes at night you see some vehicles get stopped at that point and they have accident and people lost their lives.
So I also want to ask Mr Speaker, to actually call upon the Inspector General [IG] to minimise some of these checkpoint on the road.

THE SPEAKER: I would first of all want us to refer this matter to the Committee on Transport and Evasion to look at it.

HON.

PAUL S. SAM: And also Internal Affairs.

THE SPEAKER: And Internal Affairs both of them to examine this matter and report to us.

HON.

PAUL S. SAM: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

HON.

ZAINAB C. TARAWALLY: I stand on S.O 23.


We regret to announce the death of Honourable Abdul Turay’s mother from Tombo.

He has lost his mother three days ago and she has already been buried.

Again I rise to announce the death of the former Honourable Dr Moses O. M. Sesay for constituency 034 now it is Honourable Ibrahim Ben Kargbo’s seat.

His remain is now in Sierra Leone as I speak and he will be buried on Sunday in Makeni and he is my late father’s younger brother.

I thank you.
I thank you.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for bringing this sad news to our attention, I think on behalf of the House we want to convey our deepest condolences to the families concerned and we pray that Allah forgive the mistakes of the departed and grant them eternal rest in his heavenly kingdom.

We have standing procedures with regard to the former Member of Parliament, I think arrangement have been made for his remains to be laid in Parliament.
The exact date is what I do not know, but we are 106 looking at Friday as a possible date for that immediately after we rise from the Well, so I hope the family will liaise with the Clerk’s Office to ensure that the proper thing is done.

With that, any announcement?

In fact I have one about tobacco sensitization; do you have that as well?

Good, go ahead.

HON.

DICKSON M. ROGERS: Sorry Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am appealing to SLPP Members of Parliament to meet after sitting.
Thank you Sir.

ADJOURNMENT [The House rose at 4:20 p.m. and was adjourned to Wednesday, 20th November, 2019 at 10:00 a.m.] 107